Unlimited: A Modern Retelling of Wicked
by crazybeagle
Summary: Imagine a modern-day Oz: magic and fast cars and camera phones and Animals. Things may very well have turned out differently for Elphaba... Or perhaps not. Musicalverse with definite bookish elements and some huge plot deviations.
1. Chapter 1

Unlimited- A Modern Retelling of "Wicked"

Chapter 1

[Hey, everyone! This is a modern retelling of Wicked. It's musicalverse all the way, and please don't harp on details because I have not read Maguire's Wicked or any of the Baum books and I have only seen the musical once. It will have a few major plot deviations, and gratuitous abuse of a few beloved characters. Bwahaha.

Dedicated to my little sister, who landed herself the part of Dorothy in her school production of Wizard of Oz because she used "The Wizard and I" as her audition song and channeled her inner Idina Menzel. I'm so proud of you! As well as to Brittany, my best friend, who loudly sang "One Short Day" and "Merry Old Land Of Oz" with me as we wandered through the streets of NYC with my poor dad in tow. Good times…]

***

"Are we there yet?" Nessarose whined.

"You asked me that thirty seconds ago, Nessa. What was the answer thirty seconds ago?"

"We're an hour away," Nessa grumbled."Yeah, yeah, I know. But can you believe it?" she squealed. "College!"

"College," I muttered. "Woohoo."

"Come on, Elphaba. You might actually enjoy yourself if you'd stop being so..."

"What?"

"You know...gloomy."

I snorted and stared out the train window, down at the busy highway running parallel to the tracks, and beyond, over the endless stretch of corn stalks and blue sky. Gloomy. Hmph. I would have said "introverted". Or at the very least, "melancholy".

Something more poetic than "gloomy".

Nessa drummed her fingers restlessly against the armrest of her wheelchair, her eyes wandering around the cabin. Eventually, they came to rest on me.

"You could've picked something more cheerful to wear on our first day," she said, eyeing my outfit with distaste.

I looked down at myself. Black sweatshirt, jeans, black sneakers. The usual. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Nothing," she rolled her eyes. "Except they're black. But what else is new?"

I looked my younger sister over. She had chosen her clothes carefully as ever, and of course she looked breathtaking. Her auburn hair, held back with a white headband, spilled over her shoulders. A yellow tank top perfectly accented her creamy skin, paired with a skirt of white eyelet lace. And to top it all off, she was wearing those shoes.

The shoes that Dad had given her. They were lovely, really. Silver slippers dusted with crystal beads. Heaven knows how much they had cost, but for a Thropp money was no object.

Dad loved Nessa. He doted on her, and had been worried sick at the prospect of her leaving home. He had given her the shoes as a farewell present.

He did not love me. My use and value unto him was to keep Nessa safe, because it was, after all, my fault that Nessa was born crippled and sickly. My fault, at least in his eyes.

I sighed. "Okay, Nessa. Find me a non-black outfit that I don't clash with, and then we'll talk."

She grimaced. We had had this argument many times before. But she had long since given up on trying to control my wardrobe, conceding to my conclusion that black really was the only color that didn't look completely nauseating on me.

It's difficult to pick flattering clothes when your skin is green.

Bored, Nessa pulled out her phone, her thumbs flying over the sleek keypad as she texted whichever of her friends happened to be free at the moment. Nessa had a real gift for text messaging: I had even seen her texting her friends while holding her phone under the table at several of Dad's televised press conferences, all the while sucessfully pretending to give her undivided attention to the speaker at the podium.

A few minutes passed. "I heard one of the Tiggulars goes to Shiz," Nessa remarked idly, her eyes still glued to her phone.  
"Which one?" I asked. There were three Tiggular children, as far as I knew. Two princes and a princess.

"The oldest boy, I think. The blond one. I don't remember his name. His brother's still in high school."

I shrugged, not particularly interested.

"Dang, what is his name? I've seen him on TV before. He's hot."

I laughed. "You two should hook up, then. Nessarose Thropp Tiggular, daughter to Governor Thropp of Munchkinland and Princess of the Vinkus. What a splendid title." Nessa giggled.

To be honest, dating a prince was well within Nessa's capabilities. I knew she would have no trouble getting a boyfriend at Shiz: in addition to being the wealthy daughter of the governor of Munchkinland, she was an expert at combining sympathy with sex appeal in a way no man could resist. The only reason she had broken it off with her previous boyfriend was because they were going to different universities.

It was a different story for me, of course. I was the type that preferred to stay home on Friday nights curled up with a good book. Of course, it didn't really matter whether I preferred it or not. Nineteen years, and nobody had ever bothered to ask me out.

I doubted things would improve at Shiz. If it weren't for Nessa, I wouldn't be going to Shiz at all, and to be frank, I would've been fine with that. I had spent my freshman year taking online community college courses. I had been well on my way to my Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, all without setting foot on an actual college campus. It had been wonderful. No one staring, laughing, whispering, or just plain ignoring me. Just me and my books and my laptop, in my room. A little boring at times, but still much better than what was sure to come at Shiz.

_Shiz. My next stint in purgatory._


	2. Chapter 2

Unlimited- A Modern Retelling of "Wicked"

Chapter 2

[You guys rock. I did the next chapter really fast just for my reviewers. Again, the story as a whole is for my little sister and for Brittany, but this specific chapter is dedicated to JesseMac Girl the Flinda Freak, who's story "Elphie, why is Boq in my Body?" made me laugh like a crazy person. GO READ IT. She was also quite enthusiastic about this one, and was waiting for Glinda and Fiyero to be introduced. Here you go! Love, crazybeagle who just downloaded a bunch of Killers songs (the Killers are my muses!) and every Wicked karaoke track iTunes had to offer, and will be belting out NO GOOD DEEEEEEEEEED at the top of her lungs ASAP. Have a happy and blessed Easter, everyone!]

I had to admit that the town of Shiz was really quite beautiful. It was about as old as the University, founded some three hundred years ago, and was, in addition to being a charming little tourist trap, a college town through and through. The sidewalks were brick, all lined by boxwoods and azaleas, and old brassy lamp posts were evenly spaced along the roads. When Nessa and I had come to visit Shiz last spring, I had noted that all the artsy, touristy shops and cafes were mixed in haphazardly with all the institutions necessary to satisfy a large number of college students: pizza places, coffee shops, drug and discount stores, a movie theatre, and even a nightclub.

Nessa had giggled mischievously when we'd passed the nightclub, the OzDust.

"What is it?" I'd asked.

"You do realize..." she lowered her voice to a whisper, as Dad was walking not far behind us. "You do realize we can go out and party and stuff? In Gillikin you're considered legal at age eighteen."

"Great," I mumbled. I knew Nessa wouldn't drink much- her doctors had warned her against alcohol consumption with her weak immune system- but I didn't want to have to keep track of her amongst hordes of wasted college kids.

"Nah, it'll be fun!" she said. Then she sighed. "It sucks that I can't dance, though."

"You don't have to dance to have fun," I told her gently. "I don't dance."

"Yeah, and you never have fun."

Nessa's limitations goaded her. Bound to her chair, she couldn't dance or do anything athletic, and she got sick a lot. She was quite energetic in her attempts to be social: she was always friendly, chatty, and flirty, but I'd always suspected that she was just trying to shake off the feeling that pity was the reason she had so many friends.

I was gazing out the train window again, contemplating the horrifying prospect of having to chaperone Nessa at collegiate parties. Soon, a voice over the intercom declared that we would be arriving at Shiz in ten minutes. Nessa pulled on her denim blazer and pulled out her compact to check her makeup, and I grabbed our bags. Dad had arranged to have some of our stuff sent directly to the school, but as they wouldn't arrive until tomorrow or the next day, we still had a lot of carry-on luggage. Obviously Nessa couldn't carry much of anything, so that made me the packmule.

I struggled with the two big bags, hoisting them down from the luggage rack and setting them on the floor, and then I slid my guitar case out from under the seats. The thing was so bulky, but Dad had told me that if I wanted to bring it, I'd have to take it on the train, because he wasn't paying to have it brought in advance. But of course he had arranged to have Nessa's keyboard delivered. It wasn't fair, and never mind that Nessa was minoring in Piano Composition. I needed my guitar. It was my sole source of happiness on dateless Saturday nights, aside from my books.

Nessa wheeled herself to the door of the cabin, turned around, and waited for me, a slightly guilty expression on her face as she watched me struggle with both bags and the guitar. A boy who was walking by in the hallway between the cabins glanced into our cabin, saw me struggling with the bags, bit his lip, and walked in.

"Uh...hi."

I looked at him. He was a thin, nervous-looking, sandy-haired boy with glasses. I had noticed him earlier in the dining car, gawking at me just like everyone else was while I was at the counter buying hot dogs for me and Nessa.

"Hi," I grunted, trying to pick up the bags again.

"Do you, uh, need help with those?" he asked, not making eye contact with me.

"Sure. Thanks." He walked over and picked up Nessa's bag, glancing at the guitar case.

"Do you play?"

"Not very well," I shrugged. "Just to entertain myself. It was my mom's."

"That's cool," he said, rather awkwardly. "I'm Leon, by the way. Leon Danforth. I'm a freshman this year."

"I'm Elphaba Thropp, and that's my sister Nessarose," I told him, glad that someone was actually attempting to be friendly to me, even if he looked a bit wigged. "I'm a sophomore, a transfer student. And Nessa 's a freshman." Nessa smiled brightly and waved.

"Oh. Uh, cool. Nice to meet you." He started off down the hallway with the bag, and Nessa and I followed, headed towards the train exit.

Minutes later, we were all standing on the station platform. The train station was nothing but a brick platform with a stone awning, with some benches here and there. It was swarming with students, all carrying bulky luggage of their own and chatting loudly with one another. As we made our way towards the ticket barriers, the crowd gave Nessa and her chair a wide berth, giving us an easy path. She was staring fixedly at the ground like she always did in crowds, her face going red. When I wasn't around her, people usually did what everyone does in the presence of a disabled person: try very hard not to stare. But with me at her side, everybody openly gaped at both of us.

But when we were next to the barriers, there was one girl who was too busy talking to her two friends to notice me and my many bags, and it wasn't until I accidentally stepped on her foot that she saw me.

"Ow!" she shrieked. "Hey! Watch it, you-" she wheeled around. She was a petite blonde with bouncy curls and big blue eyes, eyes that got huge when she saw me. She stared for a few seconds, then her lips quivered and she snorted, turning back to her friends.

I rolled my eyes. As I went to make sure Nessa could wheel herself through the barrier, I heard the girl giggling.

"Pfanee, did you _see_ that girl?"

"Crap," Leon muttered when we were on the other side. "All the luggage racks are gone."

"Um, that's okay. I can take the bag back, if you need to go." Inwardly, I groaned. I'd have to somehow lug all of our stuff across the entire town and up to the campus.

"Nah, it's fine."

"Okay, thanks. I owe you one."

"Uh...no problem," he stuttered. Oz, was this kid always nervous, or was it just because of me? At least he was being nice.

Shiz's main street, Carnelian Avenue, was paved with very old bricks and littered with freshly-fallen leaves. Nessa was having a hard time keeping her chair going on the bumpy ground.

"Fae? Can we stop for a few minutes? I'm tired," she said eventually, panting.

"Sure, if it's okay with Leon," I said. He nodded. "Wanna get coffee?" I pointed to a coffee shop across the street.

***

The shop was small and warm, and it smelled great. Every customer I could see looked like a student. Nessa wheeled over to an empty table, and Leon and I dumped our bags next to her.

"What do you want, Ness?"

"Mocha. A small one."

"Okay. Leon, want anything? I'll buy."

"Oh, um...okay, just...uh, a small coffee. Thanks."

When I got in line, I saw the blonde girl and her two friends enter the shop, sliding into a booth in the corner. She was wearing a pink hoodie and tight jeans, and her friend-drones were dressed similarly, complete with gobs of eyeliner and expensive sunglasses.

I turned back to the counter, but I felt their eyes on me.

The girl at the register wasn't much better. Her mouth fell open the second she saw me. She looked like a student, too. She was a short girl with frizzy dark hair and a fake-looking tan, and she was wearing too much makeup. Her nametag said "Sarima".

"Can I help you?" she asked, plainly trying to hold back laughter.

I sighed. "A small mocha, small coffee, and a small cinnamon latte- um, can I have that last one with soy milk?"

"The soy milk's in the back," she said, raising an eyebrow. "I'll have to go get it," she added, clearly annoyed.

"Uh, never mind, then. That's fine-"

"No, sweetie. She'll get it for you," an older woman behind the counter called to me. Judging by Sarima's roll of the eyes and huffy sigh, I assumed that this was her manager. She shot me a death glare and then disappeared through a door behind her.

The other woman came up to the counter and rung me up. "You'll have to excuse Sarima," she told me, giving me my change. "She often forgets her manners."

I shrugged. "That's okay."

"No, it's really not," she whispered, in a rather unprofessional way. "But her father happens to be the mayor, so I can't very well get rid of her."

I gave her a sympathetic smile, waited for a very miffed Sarima to finish the drinks, and took them back to our table.

"What was her problem?" Nessa asked, sipping her mocha.

"I dunno."

Leon and Nessa were comparing their class schedules and textbook lists when three boys entered the shop. They were all wearing matching royal blue sweatshirts, the front of which read, "Shiz University Baseball" in big white letters. _Ah, the jocks._ Now I knew whom to avoid.

They approached the counter, thankfully not noticing me, and I saw their last names printed on their backs in the same white letters. The biggest, tallest guy, whose name was "Margreave", had dark, curly hair. Next to him was a brown-haired guy whose shortness indicated that he was Munchkin. His name was "Rush". The last one was also tall, though not as tall as the Margreave kid. His hair was honey-blonde and his shirt labelled him as "Tiggular".

"Hey Nessa," I whispered, pointing to the last guy. "I think I found your prince."

"Mmm. Told you he was hot."

I hated to admit it, but she couldn't have been more right about that. He had a smile that lit up his face as he joked and laughed with his two friends, and he kept having to brush back his blonde hair with his fingers to keep it out of his bright green eyes.

"Yeah, well, I bet he's a jerk," I muttered. There was no way someone could be royal, rich, and _that _attractive without being a total bastard.

"Whatever," Nessa replied, still staring at him and the other two, who were also, to my great annoyance, fairly good-looking.

My theory about the prince was confirmed the second that Sarima saw him. She shrieked, "Yero!", ran out from behind the counter, and flung herself at him, completely ignoring the customer she was supposed to be ringing up. They started making out, passionately enough to make everyone in the shop uncomfortable. The manager shot the two of them a disapproving glare. The blonde in the corner was giving Sarima a look of pure venom.

When they finally stopped, she looked up at him and smiled. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, babe," he laughed. His voice was low and musical.

"No you didn't," she whined. "You promised you'd come visit. You never did."

"I'm sorry. I was a little busy with...uh...family stuff."

"You're not sorry," she pouted.

He stuck his bottom lip out, a perfect mockery of his girlfriend. "Yes, I am. I'm really, really, really sorry, baby, and I'll take you out tonight just to show you how horribly sorry I am."

She looked sated. "Okay."

He quickly fished for a change of subject. "So what are you doing _here_? Like, working?"

She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Well, apparently Daddy thinks I need an 'attitude adjustment' or something, and he said that if I want to spend money, I have to work for it instead of wasting taxpayer dollars."

"Aw, that sucks." He took a rolled-up baseball hat, one with an expensive athletic brand logo, out of his pocket, took her hat with the cafe logo off of her head, and replaced it with his. She giggled obnoxiously as he put her hat on his own head. "You sure do make a cute little working girl, though."

"SARIMA!" The manager yelled.

She growled. "I gotta go, Fiyero. Pick me up at six at the dining hall?"

"Sure thing, babe."

Okay, if he was attracted to _that_, he was definitely a bastard. Albeit a very cute one.

The shorter guy was on his phone. "...Yeah, I told you, I'm fine....Yeah, I got here okay...Yes, I brought it...I really gotta go now, okay? Yeah. Love you too. _Bye._" He snapped the phone shut more forcefully than necessary.

The Margreave kid grinned. "Was that your mom again, Boq?"

"Shut up."

"Hey Avaric," Fiyero called. "You can't talk, dude. _Your_ mom came to playoffs last year, remember?" He adopted a high-pitched squeal. "'_Oh Ricky, I'm so proud of you!'"_

"I remember that night," Avaric said dreamily. "That was the night I made out with your sister..."

"Angie was so wasted that she doesn't remember it anyway, so don't get any ideas, you asshole," Fiyero said, punching him lightly in the arm. "Besides, she's engaged."

"Damn it." Avaric looked disappointed. "When did that happen?"

"Last month. The guy's the son of some oil entrepreneur." He made a face. "I don't like him. But come to think of it, better him than you."

I tuned out the rest of their conversation, already bored. Leon was talking at Nessa, apparently not noticing that she wasn't listening. She was no longer looking at Fiyero, but at Boq, who was too busy staring at the blonde girl in the corner to listen to his friends. The blonde girl, however, was too busy staring at Fiyero to notice either Boq or her own friends, who were checking out all three baseball players.

I wanted to retch. It felt like I had walked right into the middle of one of those ridiculous teen drama shows.

At least no one was looking at me.


	3. Chapter 3

**All Author's Notes will be at the end! Enjoy!**

_When grey and sere our hair hath turned we shall still revere the lessons learned in our days at dear old Shiz(zzzzz)._ –Students of Shiz

***

The campus was not enormous, but it was a fairly impressive size considering the fact that Shiz had a much smaller number of students than most universities. It was a private university with a hefty tuition, so I expected that any students who were not particularly well-to-do were probably relying heavily on scholarship money.

The whole thing was surrounded by a huge, imposing stone wall with elegant iron gates. The sobering effect of the wall was somewhat softened, however, by the ivy that persistently clung to its sides. I could see numerous treetops over the top of the wall, as well as the higher stories of large brick and stone buildings. Students were pouring through the gates, several of them trying to negotiate large wheeled luggage racks through the sea of human traffic. Leon and I were getting jostled around by the crowd, and I suddenly wished that Dad had let us bring the car that Nessa and I shared. The drive would've taken much longer than the train ride, but it would have made the luggage thing so much simpler. Of course, Dad was afraid that we'd (that _she'd_) get into an accident or something, and insisted that Shiz was small enough that we could get around without a car.

At long last, we were inside. I tried to get a good look around, but it was still too crowded for me to see anything very well. We followed the tide of students down the brick pathway until we came to a table with a banner hanging from it that read, "Student-Led Tours."

"Thank God," Leon huffed, dragging his stuff and my guitar over to the table. "I have no clue where we're going, do you?" He looked a little sheepish. I shook my head, and me and Nessa followed him.

The table was surrounded by older students sitting in lawn chairs, looking bored. I knew that there had to be tons of confused freshmen here, but by the looks of it most of them didn't want to admit that they needed help finding their way around. The student sitting closest to us gave us all a wide smile, looking thoroughly amused by Leon's bag-dragging antics. She stood up. "Do you all need a tour?" she asked, looking around at us. She did the tiniest of double-takes when she saw me.

"Yes, please," said Leon, a little too eagerly. Judging by the look on his face, he was smitten by her already.

"Okay then. I'm Idina, by the way," she held out a hand and he shook it vigorously. I looked at her more closely. She was a tall, pretty girl with a pale, heart-shaped face and dark, wavy hair that fell down her back. She wore a black t-shirt that had "Shiz University Drama Dept." emblazoned in big white letters across the front. "I'm a senior this year. Oh, and if any of you have any questions about our Drama program, please don't hesitate to ask me! We're holding open tryouts for our fall musical in two weeks, and we always love to see new faces."

"Okay," Leon said breathlessly. Idina beamed at him.

"Hey Amy," she called. "You want to give them a tour?"

A girl with freckles, a ruddy tan, and short, dirty-blonde hair hopped up and nodded vigorously. Leon looked crestfallen. Obviously, he'd been expecting Idina to give the tour.

"Hello," the girl said brightly. "I'm Amy. What to be your names?" She spoke with a very heavy Quadling accent.

"I'm Elphaba Thropp," I smiled at her, ignoring the fact that she was openly staring.

"Nessarose Thropp," Nessa said, shaking her hand.

"Leon Danforth," Leon muttered gloomily.

"Nice to be meeting you." She met my eye and looked down, clearly embarrassed that I'd caught her looking at me. "Uh, okay then. Tour to be taking an hour, most likely. We to stop at dorms first so to put down luggage. And, um, about accent- I apologize. Is not something I easily control." She cleared her throat. "I…have…to…speak…very…slowly…to…make…it…go…away." She laughed. "If you to be needing me to repeat something, speak up."

"Okay," Nessa said, looking at the girl curiously. "No problem. Uh, if you don't mind me asking, isn't Amy a bit of an unusual name, especially for-"

"For Quadlings, who to be naming children after inanimate objects?" Amy giggled. "Yeah. Is definitely unusual. Is a pretty interesting story, really. Name to be Amelia, actually, but to be going by Amy. I to be named after my great grandmother Amelia, old crazy bat who to be wandering out of swamps somewhere in Quadling Country and to be claiming she to be coming from Other World and to have crashed airplane into swamp where it sank." She rolled her eyes dismissively. "She to be insane."

"An airplane?" I repeated, intrigued. Airplanes, helicopters, and basically all other types of aircraft were virtually never used in Oz except by the military in extreme emergencies. The same went for Ix, Quox, and every other country I could think of. The air currents were so strong and unpredictable in the higher atmosphere that half the people who went very high up in aircrafts either died as the thing was torn to shreds by the force of the winds or were never seen again. The same went for spacecrafts: theoretically, space travel and the launching of orbiting satellites were quite possible, and the technology existed for them, but the winds prevented all such endeavors. Most engineers agreed that space satellites would make internet, television, and cell service much more convenient than they were via the existing network of land-bound satellite dishes, radio towers, and cables that ran all over the country. As to the Other World, we only knew two things about it: one, it existed (although many Unionists liked to pretend that it did not), and two, it had orbiting satellites. Although they were nothing more than garbled static, Ozian satellites received radio and cell signals from the Other World all the time. For all anyone knew, maybe they actually used airplanes, too.

Amy shrugged. "Ready?"

***

"So there to be four main dorm buildings. We to be headed for Three Queens. Is an all-boys dorm. Is closest."

"And that's where I'm going, right? Uh, I don't know where my room is yet-" Leon started.

"No freshman is to be knowing yet. Calm down," Amy said, registering his troubled expression. "You to be leaving luggage in entrance hall of Three Queens. Housekeeping staff there to make sure no one to be messing with anyone's stuff, don't worry. Is confusing policy, I know. You to wait for Madame Morrible to pair you off with roomie. You to show up at eight-thirty in main hall of your building. You to have free time until then."

"Madame Morrible?" I asked.

"Is the dean."

"Okay." _That's a weird rule, _I thought. _Wouldn't it be easier just to mail us our room assignments or post them on a dorm bulletin board or something? And who goes by "Madame", anyway?_ "Does the same go for the girls?"

"Yes. You both to meet her in Crage Hall at seven-thirty. Is the main girls' dorm. Go ahead," she added to Leon and pointing at the dorm. Like most of the buildings here, it was old and gothic-looking, made of stone and several stories high. And also like every other building, moss and vines clung to nearly every square inch of it. He hurried off.

While we waited for him, Amy pointed out all the buildings nearby. "Is Three Queens Library," she said, pointing to a massive, cathedral-like building right next to the dorm. It took my breath away: it was by far the most beautiful building I'd seen today. "You like it?" She laughed. "Me too. Is biggest library on campus. And lots of old manuscripts if you to be interested. More interesting is boy who works at reference desk. Is on baseball team." She was wearing a slightly star-struck expression.

I tried really hard not to roll my eyes, remembering the baseball players I'd seen in the coffee shop.

"Which one?" Nessa asked.

"Boq Rush. Is best pitcher. Is pretty nice too, compared to others on team. Only one on team to be actually talking to me."

"Yeah, we saw him earlier today," Nessa gushed. "And two other guys on the team."

"Who?" Amy asked, a bemused expression on her face.

"Um…Avaric something and Fiyero Tiggular."

Amy shook her head. "Do yourself a favor. Please to be staying away from Avaric Margreave. Is a big jerk. And Fiyero to be not much better, as far as I'm knowing. Those three to be juniors this year. Avaric to be Team Captain. Most of team to be jerks, in my experience. But all very cute," she giggled. "Do yourself another favor. Go to games. Look from safe distance."

_No thank you_, I thought. But of course Nessa would want to see the games to feed her newest infatuation, so I supposed I didn't have much of a choice.

Leon came running back a minute or so later, my guitar swinging around wildly and dangerously in his grasp, and skidded to a halt in front of Amy. "Sorry," he gasped. "Got lost."

"How on earth to be getting lost in there?" she asked, grinning.

His cheeks flushed and he muttered indistinctly.

"Hey, lighten up. I to be messing with you. Come on." And we followed her, past the beautiful library and over a stone bridge that spanned what looked like a large creek or small river cutting through the campus. "Suicide Bridge," Amy said as we crossed it. "Supposed to be haunted," she added slyly, glancing at Leon. He had gone slightly pale. "Scared of ghosts, are we?" she teased.

"Anyway, that to be the Science Hall," she said, pointing at the building closest to the bridge on the left side of the path, "And Ozma Towers past that. Is senior dorms, co-ed. On right be English Department, and next to it be Emerald Auditorium. Actually to have three theatres but Emerald Auditorium to be biggest."

We passed several more buildings, whose names I was trying hard to commit to memory. But the beauty of this place was entrancing enough to distract me. The buildings looked like a collection of miniature castles, or the ruins of castles that had succumbed to time and nature and were half-buried by foliage. And trees, whose leaves were starting to color and fall, hung over and shaded everything. Well, Shiz was food for the imagination, if nothing else.

"Okay, Crage Hall here. Every girl to stay here first year at Shiz. Behind Crage Hall to be a garden and fruit trees, then on other side be Briscoe Hall. Is Honors dorms, and is where I stay." She smiled shyly. "Now come on. You too, Leon. Crage Hall girls won't bite…much."

We entered Crage Hall together, Leon walking a little behind and now looking distinctly irritated by Amy's wheedling. The entrance hall was a big, open stone room with long windows whose handmade glass offered a fogged, distorted view of the world outside. Rows of benches filled the hall like a cathedral, ending in a dais with a lectern at the front of the room. It was packed with chattering girls. As we looked for the nearest bench on which to drop our luggage, everyone within a ten-foot radius stopped and stared, including the housekeeping personnel, who were stationed one per every few benches and were talking amongst themselves. Nessa looked mortified. Leon and Amy pretended not to notice. I was indifferent.

"I try to be thinking what else I to show you," Amy said once we were back outside. "But that be it, I think. Want to get dinner?"

***

**Okay, time for A/N: I know I said this was Musicalverse, but the elements of the book that are included are a testament to the fact that I am currently reading (and adoring) the book. About the Idina cameo: this is in part due to the fact that I've been watching scenes from RENT on YouTube and now have this desperate desire to see the movie, and I've had Take Me Or Leave Me and La Vie Boheme stuck in my head for the past several days. About Amy: if you still haven't figured out who her great grandmother was, I'm telling my history teacher mom and my History Major dad and you're gonna get in trouble with them. And the next chapter, I promise, will include more Fiyero, a proper introduction for Glinda, and the infamous Crope-and-Tibbett-Tibbett-and-Crope!**


	4. Chapter 4

Unlimited Chapter 4

**A/N: Two things: First, I lied. No Fiyero in this chapter. sob Second, it's "Glinda" from the outset, not "Galinda", and I'll explain why later!**

We wandered back down the sidewalk towards the dining hall. Amy noticed me staring again as we passed Three Queens Library, and she said, "You should go see if you be wanting to. Is only quarter to six. You to have plenty of time. Come find us in dining hall afterward."

"Okay," I began, but I glanced at Nessa, uncertain. I didn't like leaving her alone.

"I'll be fine," she snapped, smiling wryly but waving me away like I was annoying fly. "Go bond with your books. I know you want to."

"Okay, Elphaba. See you later. When you be finished, I to introduce you to all the cool non-athletic people," Amy said with a laugh. "Idina, who you met, and Falyn, Olivia, Mirabelle, Crope, Tibbett, and everyone else. Find us at table near center of hall. Actually, I not to be seeing Crope or Tibbett today. Not here yet, maybe. Or hanging out in library already." She shrugged. "Anyway, maybe Idina to try to coerce you all into being in Fall Musical, if you are not careful." She looked pointedly at Leon, who flushed.

"I may try out anyway," Leon admitted, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "I did a lot of musical theater in high school."

"Good for you," Amy said, clapping him on the back. "I to be wanting to come to your audition." He winced. "Let's go, guys. See you in a bit, Elphaba!" And they left together.

***

The library, on the inside, was magnificent. It was a clear continuation of the university's Gothic theme, with stone arches, vaulted ceilings, and jewel-bright stained-glass windows. Stately mahogany tables and chairs stood here and there, and dozens of alcoves were tucked into the walls, each lit by its own window. The shelves were stuffed with books, but there were more modern accommodations on the second floor in the form of a hundred or so computers sitting on several tables. The many wings branching off the main hall gave the place a sprawling, labyrinth-like atmosphere.

I was wandering down one of the third-floor wings when I noticed two boys huddled together in an alcove, peering over the top of a laptop screen at me. One of them was gaping and the other was smirking. As I walked by, the second boy called out, "Enjoying the library, are we?

It was then that I realized that I'd been so caught up in the sheer beauty of it all that my mouth had been hanging open and my eyes had been huge. I nodded, feeling heat rising in my cheeks.

"Yeah, I can tell. You kind of looked like a fish." His friend and I laughed. He stood and held out his hand. "I'm Crope, by the way. Crope Redford." I shook his hand, looking him over. He was dark-haired and on the short side, and was wearing thick-framed glasses and a black fedora. "And that's Tibbett," he said, pointing at his friend, who was blonde and a bit shrimpy, and was wearing a t-shirt advertising a popular video game. "Tibbett Smithson. Crope and Tibbett, Tibbett and Crope, better known by the baseball team, the swim team, the cross country team, the dance team, and basically everyone else as the Shiz University Library Fags."

I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not, so I managed a half-smile.

"Yeah. We have Avaric Margreave to thank for that one," Crope said, rolling his eyes.

"Douche bag," Tibbett muttered.

Crope nodded. "Yeah. I don't know if I'm more offended by that guy's blatant homophobia or by his spectacular lack of creativity. I mean, 'Library Fags'? Honestly…" He shrugged. "Whatever. So what's your name?"

"Elphaba Thropp."

"Nice to meet you," Crope said, sitting back down.

"I think- wait, I _know_ I saw you earlier with some girl in a wheelchair," Tibbett said. "She was calling you 'Fae'."

"Uh, yeah. That's my sister Nessarose. She's always called me Fae."  
"Why?" Crope asked.

"Well, my name comes from that old Unionist legend Saint Aelphaba and the Waterfall, and Aelphaba is also called Fabala in different versions of the story, so our housekeeper used to call me Fabala when I was little. Nessa couldn't say Fabala when she was two, so she called me Fae. I guess the name stuck."

"Fae," Tibbett mused. "I like it. That's less of a mouthful than 'Elphaba'. I was just gonna call you 'Hey green girl!'"

I laughed, but Crope smacked Tibbett in the arm. "You are completely tactless, you know that?" he growled.

"Well, you said she looked like a fish," Tibbett said sulkily, rubbing his arm.

"Yeah, but at least I wasn't so rudely referring to her-uh-"

"It's okay," I assured them. I liked these two already. "It's not exactly easy to ignore."

Crope looked relieved that he hadn't offended me, but Tibbett looked curious. "Uh, if you don't mind me asking, why…" he trailed off, quailing under a blistering look from Crope.

"I don't know why, actually. No one does. And I don't mind him asking, Crope, so you can stop glaring at him," I added. "I was just born this way."

"Oh. Wow," Tibbett said, now unashamedly staring at me. I shrugged. "That's kinda cool, actually. You look like something out of a graphic novel."

"The hero or the villain?" I asked, entertained. Tibbett laughed. Crope smiled, though he still looked as though he were trying to decide if I'd been offended or not.

"I don't know. But we should think up a cool name for you."

"Jade Princess of Doom," Crope suggested.

"Lovely," I said dryly. "Hey, do you guys know a girl named Amy? I don't know her last name…uh, Quadling, dirty blonde, lots of freckles?"

"Yeah. That's Amy Noonan. Why?"

"She said she was friends with you two. She gave me and Nessa a tour of the school. She's in the dining hall now, but she was wondering where you guys were."

"Oh, okay," Crope said. "Actually, we probably should go meet up with everyone. You should come with us. We'll introduce you to our _entourage_," he said with a flourish.

"Thanks. I was planning on it anyway. Nessa and our friend Leon are already over there with Amy."

"Maybe Boq will come," Tibbett said hopefully.

"Nah, he's probably going to be stuck eating with the League of All Evil," Crope said, looking disgusted.

"The what?"

"The League of All Evil, otherwise known as the baseball team," Tibbett explained. "Boq's on the team, but he's pretty cool. He works a desk job in here, and we work in the stacks, so we hang out with him a lot. But that also means that we have to put up with-"

"With _them_," Crope finished contemptuously. "Mainly Fiyero and Avaric, but a lot of times the others too. I really don't know why he tolerates them. He even does their homework and stuff. I keep telling him he's not their bitch, but he won't listen. However," he added with a mischievous smile, "On the plus side, there's perks to the arrangement, at least for us. I mean, have you _seen_ Fiyero Tiggular?" He moved his eyes up and down, as if he were checking out an invisible person standing before him. "Daaaaaaamn."

Tibbett put his hand over his heart in a mock salute. "I pledge allegiance to the Vinkus."

Crope laughed and did the same. "Amen, brother."

***

They left a few minutes later for dinner. I told them I'd meet up with them in a few minutes, partially because I wasn't done poking around the library, and partially because I was kind of sick of having to be social for the time being, even if most of the people I'd interacted with today had been fairly friendly. I reveled in the peace and emptiness of this place, breathing in the scent of stone and old paper. Here, I was in my element.

When I finally decided that it would be rude of me to linger in here too much longer, I set off for the dining hall. It was in one of the biggest, oldest buildings on campus, and I had to walk down a long, broad hallway to get there. After a minute or so, I found myself walking behind none other than the blonde girl and her drones, along with another girl who was dressed fairly differently than the others. She wore her black hair in a short bob and was wearing a black blouse, very tight straight-legged jeans, and a pair of shiny red pumps.

"…And I walked in, and I swear they were all over each other!" the drone in the aqua-blue hoodie was telling the other two.

"That slut," the girl in purple, whom the blonde had called Pfannee earlier, whispered. She sounded delighted.

"This is just too perfect…" giggled the blonde. "So we see her in the coffee shop practically eating his face off, and then two hours later Mr. Swim Team Boy is feeling her up in the dorms…the year's not even begun and Fiyero's girlfriend's cheating on him!"

"Are you going to tell him, then?" the girl in black snapped.

"Um, yeah. Duh. C'mon, Milla. Why not?"

"He's so not worth it. I know he's hot, Glin, but I had classes with him last year. He's a total dumbass. And frankly, that's kinda bitchy of you to tattle on her, even if she is a slut."

"Oh, stop sucking the fun out of everything, Mil," Pfannee retorted. "Go for it, Glinda."

"Oh, I will," the blonde giggled evilly. "But I have to do it at exactly the right time. I mean, it's Fiyero we're talking about. Even if I do manage to break them up, he isn't gonna be single for very long. I have to have a plan. So what I need _you_ to do, Shenshen, is keep an eye on Sarima for me. And let me know immediately if you see her with Domitan again."

"Will do," the girl in blue chirped. "Thank Lurline for camera phones!"

Milla groaned. "Have fun with that."

Glinda turned to look at Milla, and I saw her roll her eyes. "Aw, Mil, we all know you hate her too. We'll take care of this. Just sit back and enjoy the fireworks."

Milla laughed. "Alright, whatever. Go for it. But if anyone asks, I had nothing to do with it. I value my spot on the dance team, and I'd like to avoid being pissing off the girl whose sister is my Team Captain."

"Oh, right," Glinda muttered. "I forgot about that. Don't worry. We won't get you in trouble."

I was almost glad when we entered the giant double doors and their babble was immediately cut off by the dull roar of hundreds of voices coming from the inside of a massive stone hall packed with tables. Then again, the triviality of the girls' conversation had been admittedly entertaining, and I could just imagine how the one named Glinda would react if she found out that the green freak from the train station had overheard the whole thing.

I crossed the hall, looking for Nessa and the students I'd met earlier. Eventually, I caught sight of Crope and Amy, both of whom had hopped up from their seats and were waving at me. I put on my best polite smile and headed for their table.

**THERE'S A LITTLE GREEN BUTTON DOWN HERRE THAT WANTS TO BE PRESSED! THIS MAGIC LITTLE BUTTON HAS THE EXTRAORDINARY POWER TO SPEED UP MY UPDATES!**


	5. Chapter 5

Unlimited Chapter 5

**A/N: You guys totally blew me away with all your wonderful reviews. I love you all. So right now, I'm eating my mom's Chinese-style chicken over rice and asparagus, listening to my A Chorus Line album, and feeling very loved. You all rock out loud. **

**This chapter is dedicated to the "real" Olivia. You know who you are. LYLAS**

**And another thing: in this story there's a difference between being Arjiki and being normal Vinkan, which I'll explain in a later chapter. **

"Hello again," Idina said a bit too brightly as I took my place at the table.

"Hi," I said to the table at large. I was suddenly aware of how quiet things got when I sat down, and I was fairly certain that I knew what , or rather whom, they'd been talking about before I'd arrived.

"Okay, Fae. We have a few more people you have to meet," Crope told me, pointing to the girl next to Idina. "This is Falyn, future lawyer and drama geek extraordinaire, and of course, Idina's lovely roommate. The two of them ditched us all at Briscoe for Ozma Towers this year."

"Senior privilege," the girl called Falyn snapped at him, but she smiled at me. "Hi, Elphaba." Falyn had dark skin, indicating that she was at least partly if not fully Arjiki, and her black hair was fixed in small, short braids that covered her head. She was also wearing one of the Drama Department tees, along with a pair of heavy silver hoop earrings. She stood and held out her hand across the table and I shook it. After she sat back down, I caught her glancing at me sidelong a few times, but judging by her expression, someone had already furnished her with an explanation regarding my greenness.

Tibbett smiled crookedly. "By the way, I think it's only fair to warn our newcomers that once auditions for the musical begin, the musical's all Idina, Falyn, and Crope are going to talk about for the rest of the freaking semester."

"It's true," Amy laughed. "I to still remember all words from all songs in last year's show, 'cause these three to never shut up." Crope stuck his tongue out at both of them and then made what drama kids call jazz hands. Amy handed me a tray loaded with chicken, macaroni and cheese, and salad, along with a bottle of soda. "Meal plans not to be starting until Monday when classes start, so here be your dinner. Nessa paid." I thanked her and started eating, surprised by how hungry I was, and more surprised that for campus food, this stuff wasn't all that terrible. "Oh look," Amy said, pointing at a girl now approaching the table with a full tray. "You two be late!" she called to the girl.

"Two?" Nessa began. Like me, she could only see one person walking towards us.

The girl, a curvy brunette with long, straight hair who sported an oversized black leather jacket, set the tray gently on the table. "Sorry," she said guiltily. "Got held up at the train station."

"Happens every year," added a light soprano voice whose owner I could not see. I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone new. "I keep telling Mom to just let me hide in Olivia's pocket, but she's still convinced that it's illegal if I don't buy a ticket."

"And she doesn't want you to get squished," the new girl added with a grin, staring down at her tray.

"That too," the voice agreed.

Suddenly I saw who the girl was talking to, and I started. It was a tiny brown mouse, or rather a Mouse, sitting on the tray on her hind legs. She was wearing a delicate pink silk flower on a choker of yellow ribbon fastened around her little neck, and humor sparkled in her eyes as she looked up at the girl who I assumed was Olivia. Aside from this girl, and a Golden Retriever who worked one of the train stations we'd passed, I suddenly realized that hadn't seen any Animals at all today.

Crope looked at me, Nessa, and Leon, probably sensing confusion, and said, "We have some additions to our little party this year, guys. Want to introduce yourselves?"

"Oh, okay," Olivia said, scanning the faces at the table. Her eyes rested no longer than a few seconds on me or Nessa, as if she saw, or pretended to see, nothing unusual. "I'm Olivia Mahon. Nice to meet you."

"Mirabelle Mahon," the Mouse girl chirped, looking around. "I'm her adopted sister," she added. "We're sophomores this year." It didn't appear that Mirabelle noticed anything different about me at all, though her eyes lingered on Nessa- or so I thought, but she was so small it was hard to tell- for several seconds.

"Elphaba, Nessarose, Leon," Crope said lazily, pointing at each of us. "Now we all know each other. Hrmm…" he cocked his head to the side, looking at the Mahon sisters. "Okay, what should I tell you all about the Mahons? Uh…alright, we'll start with Olivia. English Major, self-proclaimed stalker of every male athlete at Shiz, and probably the most prolific fanfiction author the internet has ever seen."

"Um, fanfiction?" Nessa asked.

Falyn rolled her eyes. "She'll explain it to you. Believe me."

Olivia nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes."

"Alright," Crope continued. "Next is our lovely little Mirabelle."

"Don't patronize me," Mirabelle warned.

"Alright, just Mirabelle then," Crope amended. "Though you happen to be both lovely and little. Anyway, Mirabelle here is going to be a CSI investigator someday."

"Hopefully," she added, a note of sadness in her voice.

"Nah, don't worry," Idina assured her. "You know your stuff. Someday they'll make one of those cool criminal investigation dramas based off of your life, Belle. Can I be in it?" she added hopefully.

My heart constricted. It went without speaking that Mirabelle's chances wouldn't be good. It was rare to find Animals with good jobs anywhere in Oz, due to the fact that, in addition to the ever-present prejudices against them, they often had to work around the limitations of their own non-human bodies. To most Animals, chances at well-paying jobs, as well as for decent educations, were severely limited by a lack of opposable thumbs, among other severe hindrances. Accommodations were rarely made. Not that this had ever been a very pressing political or social issue, as there were not enough Animals in Oz to arouse much popular sentiment about it. But was injustice, pure and simple, and it had always bothered me when I saw it.

Nessa, Leon, and I made our introductions, and I furnished Olivia with a brief, though a bit more blunt than I'd intended, explanation for my skin. Mirabelle had laughed and explained that she hadn't even noticed at first because Mice, like mice, were colorblind. My stomach sank a little; that was likely to make things even harder for her if she hoped to enter the field of criminology.

"Wow," Falyn muttered when Nessa explained that we were the daughters of the Governor of Munchkinland. "You'll be next in line for Governor then, Elphaba?"

"Well…" I started. "Maybe. I mean, it's a hereditary position, but the rules aren't quite as strict as they are in, say, a monarchy. When Dad retires, he'll pick one of us for the job." Of course, I didn't mention that it was Nessa who was majoring in Political Science because Dad had specifically asked her to. I glanced at Nessa. She looked uncomfortable. She knew as well as I did that the title would go to her, but her discomfort with the whole thing came less from the fact that we both knew that as the oldest I should inherit the title than it did from the fact that she really didn't have any desire to be a governor or any inherent aptitude for politics.

"Hmm," Falyn said. "I think the whole system of hereditary rule is stupid and outdated, personally. Uh, no offense," she added quickly.

"None taken."

"But, I mean, at least where you come from, your family gets to decide which of you ought to inherit the title. I wish it was that way in the Vinkus," she said with a bitter laugh. "I mean, look who's going to be _my _future king." She pointed to Fiyero, who was sitting with his friends several tables away.

"I don't see what you're complaining about," Olivia said, staring dreamily in Fiyero's direction.

"I'm complaining about a freaking impending apocalypse, Olivia," Falyn snapped.

"A _sexy _apocalypse," Olivia giggled. Falyn made a gagging noise.

"I gotta agree with her there, Fal," Crope said, also looking in Fiyero's direction.

Falyn looked thoroughly pissed. Tibbett laughed.

"Okay, break it up," Amy said. "He to not be doing much real ruling, anyway. That be what Wizard of Oz is for."

"Yeah, well…" Falyn mumbled.

"Hey Olivia," Amy interrupted, clearly trying to turn the conversation and keep the peace. "Why to be wearing big leather jacket? You never to be wearing that last year."

"Oh God, don't get her started." Mirabelle rolled her eyes, but she sounded amused. "It's a fandom thing."

At that, Olivia launched into a lively monologue about her new favorite TV show, in which the blonde bombshell of a heroine ran around battling demons and various other forces of darkness all while wearing a baggy leather jacket given to her by her vampire boyfriend. Idina, also a big fan of the show, contributed to the explanation with enthusiasm.

I tried to listen, but I had begun to wonder about room assignments, which would be taking place in a little more than an hour. Past experience had taught me not to expect my roommate to welcome me with open arms, but I still hoped that I'd be with someone bearable, at the very least.

***

"Glin?"

"Hm?"

"Glin, are you even listening?"

"Hmm?"

"GLINDA!"

"What?" I asked, irritated. No, I hadn't been listening. But she'd just screeched in my ear. Sheesh, I was listening now…

"Could you stop staring at the baseball boys for like two seconds and listen when I'm talking to you?" Milla snapped. "I said, did you fill out another app for a sorcery seminar?"

"Yup."

"Well?" she demanded, eyebrows raised.

"Did you get it this time?" Pfannee shrieked, in her annoying, I-just-want-something-to-gossip-about manner. Okay, that wasn't fair of me, but she'd just touched a nerve.

"Nope," I growled.

"Why?" Shenshen asked, shocked. "You gotta be one of the only- maybe even _the_ only- student here who can do magic at all."

"Try telling that to Morrible," I said coolly. I had everything I needed for that seminar-The written testimonies from Mom and Dad all about how I did in fact possess magic and how I'd be the best darn sorcery student Shiz has ever known and how I'd use my powers to change the world for the better and blah blah blah, in addition to my own essay, which was pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.

Okay, so I bombed that so-called Sorcery Aptitude Test. Whatever. Like that thing really meant anything, anyway.

And this year, I had applied again, only to get a super-short letter from the old hag politely explaining how my freshman grades had sucked so badly that she wasn't even willing to consider me for the seminar this year.

Ugh. That bitch.

It wasn't fair. I mean, I passed all my courses, didn't I?

Milla seemed to notice the totally depressed way in which I was now picking at my salad. She patted my back gently. "Ah, who needs her anyway? We all know you've got skills."

"Mad skills," Pfannee laughed. "Remember last summer at Lake Chorge when your mom made that totally awful pot pie? And then like _that-_" she snapped her fingers- "It turned into a lovely coconut crème pie?"

"Fluffy meringue on top and all," Milla added.

"Yeah, that was cool," I muttered. It had been very exciting at the time, but I still had no idea how I'd managed to do it, and I'd had a massive headache and had felt all queasy for hours afterwards.

To distract myself from my total misery, I glanced over at the baseball guys again. Our table was conveniently a mere two tables away from their table, so the view was excellent. Fiyero was sitting between the super-tall blonde kid named Gareth and that brunette Munchkin boy who always looked depressed. The Munchkin boy, who was named Bick or something, was gazing longingly at the table where the green freak who had stomped my foot earlier was sitting with the drama dorks, the Library Fags, and some new girl in a wheelchair. When he wasn't looking at them, he was looking at the fork in his hand as though he'd like to gag himself to death with it. I thought I saw him glance over here a few times, but he did it infrequently enough that I decided it was flattering rather than creepy.

Gareth was talking to Fiyero. Fiyero looked kind of irritated and restless. I checked the time on my phone. 6:15.

And suddenly I felt a hell of a lot better. Maybe he was going to get stood up. Maybe Sarima wasn't going to show, and I wouldn't have to be the one to break them up after all.

I looked at him again. Unlike his friends, Fiyero was dressed nicely, wearing jeans but with a date-appropriate blue button-down shirt. Gorgeous, as always. But the way he'd pushed up his sleeves- not rolled, but _pushed_- kind of irritated me. The way the cuffs stuck out made him look kind of like an overgrown ten-year-old. It was cute enough on him in an endearing sort of way, but I made a mental note that when I started dating him, I would make sure that he knew how to properly roll up his sleeves.

Just when I was getting ready to head to his table to flirt up a storm, Sarima appeared at the door of the lunchroom and the little bubble of hope that had welled up in me burst.

"Skank," Pfannee giggled.

Well, she was definitely dressed like a skank. It was too cold out for her to be wearing a miniskirt at all, and the one she was wearing was the type that made every guy within fifty feet of a girl stare at her ass.

When Yero saw her, he stood up. "You're late," he said playfully, pulling her into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"_I'm sorry baby, really! I was just gettin' it on with Dom in a broom closet," _I whispered to Milla, mimicking that obnoxious whiny voice.

"Bitter much?" she hissed.

"Nah, it's all good," he said, his eyes travelling over her in a very guy-ish manner. "It was worth the wait."

"So where are we going?" she asked as they left together.

"God, Glin. Calm down," Shenshen muttered a few seconds later. "You were staring at her like you wanted to eat her liver or something."

I sighed. "So, any new ideas about how to take Sarima down?"

"Do you really want to talk about her right now?" Milla asked, eyebrows raised.

"Oh yes. Yes, I really do."

"I think we should wait until Shenshen gets a good, incriminating snapshot of her and Dom, then we'll text it to everyone we know. Fiyero will get it eventually," Pfannee whispered in what I liked to call her "conspirator" voice.

"Um, _hello_? I'm her roommate," Shenshen said, shaking her head. "I can't take a photo of them in the dorm. She'll know I took it and she'll make my life totally miserable for the rest of the year."

"Great," I growled, feeling all hopeless again.

"Just be glad Sarima's not _your_ roommate," Milla said.

"Yeah, but now you aren't my roommate anymore either," I reminded her. "Why the hell are you ditching me for Dork-o Hall, anyway?"

"My own room. Duh. Love ya, Glin, but you've got a lot of stuff and that room is tiny. Briscoe Hall is way bigger and way nicer, and as long as I'm on the Honor Roll, I might as well."

"But now I have to share with some random freshman, Mil. You suck."

"Ah, who knows? I hardly made Honor Roll anyway. Maybe I'll be back with you next semester."

"Yeah right. Damn you and your smartness." I turned away from her, feeling even more pouty than before. I was going to miss Milla.

"Hey, maybe you'll get the chick in the wheelchair over there," Pfannee laughed. "Or _Grasshopper Girl_."

"Shut up." Oh God. If I ended up with _her_ as a roommate, I would be totally convinced that the universe was somehow out to get me.

**A/N: I have a question for you all: if Buffy really was an Ozian TV series, would Oz still be named Oz? Or would he even be in the show at all?  
Whoever PMs me (please PM, don't leave it in your review) with the most creative answer to the question will get my next chapter dedicated to them. ;)**


	6. Chapter 6

Unlimited, A Modern Retelling Of Wicked

Chapter 6

**Hey there. Mostly I'm posting this because I feel guilty for having put it on hold for so long. It's a very short chapter and I know I should've written more, but there are some things in this chapter that will become fairly important to the plot, so pay attention please. Two other things I'd like to address…First off, to all those who read and reviewed "To Feel", I adore you. It was my first ever completed story and the feedback was absolutely incredible. One other thing…I've been asked at least twice if this will turn out to be a Gelphie. I'm sorry to disappoint ye Gelphie fans, and I hope you'll keep reading it anyway, but that's an emphatic NO. If you have in fact read "To Feel", you'll know that I'm a hopeless Fiyeraba fangirl, and as this is a retelling I'm obliged to stick with the canon pairing anyhow, so…yeah. Long live Fiyerabaness! **

**Oh, and this is jointly dedicated to the fanfic users James Birdsong, who recommended that Oz from Buffy should be named "Ix" if Joss Whedon was an Ozian TV producer, and TheSquintiestSquint, who recommended that his name be "L.A." They actually tell you in Season 4 that he's really named Daniel, but if this is the land of Oz we're talking about, biblical names may not be commonplace. Oh, and brownie points for Android k/18, who gave me some fascinating and mildly disturbing background information about the name of Oz's band, "Dingoes Ate My Baby". ;) **

"You okay?" I asked, gently rubbing Nessa's back.

We were in the girls' bathroom of the dining hall. Nessa had excused herself early from dinner, and when I had gone to check on her I'd found her throwing up violently in the handicapped stall.

"Uh…I want to go lie down…" she rasped.

"You can, Ness. As soon as you get your room assignment, I'll help you get settled."

I realized I should have known this would happen. It did not take much to make Nessa ill, and today had been full of nervous excitement, some definite separation anxiety, a long campus tour, and greasy food.

She looked up at me, her face pale and exhausted. "I wish we could room together," she whispered. "I don't want a stupid caretaker."

"I know," I said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "But it's a campus policy. You know that. All students with special needs have to have a licensed caretaker."

Nessa bit her lip. "God, it's gonna be so embarrassing…"

I raised an eyebrow. "More embarrassing than having your green sister cart you around?" She smiled weakly. "Anyway, Ness, the lady that they assign to you is only going to be there to help you get ready in the morning and stuff like that, and she'll be on call in case you need her during the day. She won't follow you around or anything. That's what Dad sent me along for, remember?"

She sighed. It couldn't be more obvious that the prospect of being forced to rely on either me or a caretaker did not appeal to her in the least. The expression on her face seemed to say, _Yeah, there goes all my chances at a social life…_

She washed her hands and dabbed her face with a wet paper towel, and then turned to me, her eyes unusually bright. "Fae, please please _please _don't tell anyone about this."

"About what?"

"Any of this. Me getting sick a lot…and the whole caretaker thing… _Please,_" she begged.

"I won't, honey." I decided that it wasn't a good time to tell her that the truth would come out eventually whether she wanted it to or not, and that she was only setting herself for humiliation later.

She put her head in her hands. "I do _not _need this right now…not today…"

I gave her shoulder a light squeeze. A few seconds later, the bathroom door swung open and Falyn walked in.

"Oh, hey guys," she said when she saw us.

Nessa quickly raised her head. "Hi, Falyn." She plastered a false smile on her face. Her ruse looked almost believable, but she was still pale and her eyes were red.

"You okay, Nessa?" Falyn asked, studying her face with concern.

Nessa nodded a bit too enthusiastically. "Yeah, totally. I just came to use the restroom and then I…was trying to fix my makeup. I guess I took too long, so Elphaba came to find me."

Falyn eyed her skeptically. "Okay, just checking."

"Hey, uh, what time is it?" I asked, determined to end the awkward situation. "We should start heading for Crage Hall, shouldn't we?" Nessa glanced up at me with an expression of undisguised gratitude.

Falyn looked at her watch. "Yeah, I guess you should. You can just follow Olivia and Mirabelle. Crage Hall is where they stay. You sure you're okay, Nessa?"

"Uh-huh." She started wheeling herself towards the door.

I bade Falyn a hasty goodbye, held the door open for Nessa, and followed her into the rapidly emptying dining hall.

***

"So, what's Morrible like?" I asked Olivia as the four of us made our way towards Crage Hall. I was pushing Nessa's chair, as she was still feeling sick. Mirabelle was sitting on Olivia's shoulder, clinging to Olivia's dark hair with her tiny paws.

"Well…" Olivia began uncertainly.

"She's a crazy old hag and we hate her," Mirabelle said promptly. I was astonished by the anger in her voice.

"Yeah, she is," Olivia muttered, looking down at the ground.

"Why?" Nessa asked.

"She's the main reason things have been so difficult for Belle," Olivia explained. "I mean, we can't prove that it's _her _exactly, but she's the headmistress, and it's a small school, so you know it's really her who's in charge of everything."

"How difficult?" I asked, suddenly very interested but sure that I wasn't going to like what I was about to hear.

"First of all," Mirabelle growled, "My application was denied. For no good reason."

"Her grades are better than mine, and I got accepted," Olivia added. "What really pisses us off is that Morrible personally reviews all the applications and sends out the acceptance letters, so the fact that she rejected Mirabelle means that-"

"She's a total bigot," Mirabelle finished. "We kept trying to contact her after that, but her secretaries all refused to let us speak to her. It wasn't until Mom threatened to file a lawsuit that she finally gave it up and I got accepted."

"And now they aren't doing a thing to accommodate her," Olivia said softly, her voice quivering with suppressed fury. "We had to schedule all our classes so that we could sit through them together, even though we have different majors, and half of her professors last year wouldn't let me take notes for her, and she has to dictate all her papers and exams to me so I can type them up, and the list goes on. It's a nightmare, and no one gives a damn. Morrible certainly doesn't."

"Hence our little nickname for her," Mirabelle said humorlessly.

"What's that?"

"Horrible Morrible," they said together.

My lips twitched at the nickname. "Is she really that bad?" Nessa asked.

"Oh yeah," Mirabelle assured her. "Personal biases aside, she's still nauseating."

"Which is why we aren't going to stick around for her beginning-of-term speech, if that's okay with you guys," Olivia said apologetically. "We haven't even started unpacking, anyway."

"How long is this speech gonna take?" Nessa, who was clearly still nauseous, asked.

"God, last year it was…it must have been an hour and a half at least," Mirabelle told her. Nessa sighed.

"That woman can _talk_," Olivia added with a grimace. "You're only required to go if it's your first year, but she apparently it's 'strongly recommended' for all the Crage Hall girls to show up to this thing. She'll be annoyed that we aren't there, but frankly, I don't care."

Olivia and Mirabelle left us at the double front doors of Crage Hall so that they could slip into the building through a side door and make it to their room without having to pass through the entrance hall. I watched them go, deeply unsettled by the things Olivia had said. I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as we were very nearly late. Bigot or not, I was about to experience the Horrible Morrible for myself.

"Ready?" I asked Nessa before we headed in. She nodded miserably. "Let's get this over with," I muttered, pushing her through the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Unlimited Chapter 7**

**Many thanks to everyone who reviewed "Since I Could Not Succeed". That one was really fun to do, and it was my first ever character-murder (many apologies to the Fiyero fans). But now back to this story, which is about to get real interesting…**

_I'm the other daughter. Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic. –_Elphaba, Act One

The entrance hall, though it had been crowded earlier, now looked as though it was stuffed to its maximum capacity. And once again, people turned and stared as I wheeled Nessa to a spot near the end of one of the rows next to a window. Nessa's pale face went pink and she kept her head down as the babble from the crowd rose around us. I sat down with my arms crossed and stared straight ahead, though at this point I was sorely tempted to give the finger to the next person I caught gaping at me. A few seconds later, Nessa nudged my arm and whispered, "Look!"

There at the head of the room was a short, vaguely humanoid robot making its way on jointed legs toward the podium. The thing was approximately four feet in height and made of meticulously polished steel, with odd blinking red lights where eyes ought to be. I knew that this must be a tiktok, a robot animated by a delicate combination of digital technology and sorcery. Whoever owned this one had to be either incredibly rich or had to have pulled some strings with the government. Most tiktoks were government-owned, as the spellwork required to work with- and not against-the robot's complicated circuitry was extremely difficult to perform. I had plenty of firsthand experience with this precarious relationship between magic and technology- in the past year alone, I had managed to destroy two cell phones as well as Nessa's mp3 player, in addition to blowing out a few light bulbs in our house, simply because I was near them at the wrong time. That tendency of mine (or quirk, as I always called it), was another big reason I was daunted by the prospect of a roommate: there was no small possibility that I could accidentally wipe out her laptop's hard drive if I happened to be having a bad day.

As the tiktok took its jerky mechanical steps toward the center platform on which the podium stood, the chatter that filled the room quickly turned into a chorus of whispers and exclamations of surprise. I doubted that anyone else here had ever seen a tiktok, either. The tiktok mounted the platform and regarded the crowd, its head turning smoothly back and forth as if to scan the room and its eyes glowing steadily. And then, without warning, an earsplitting wail suddenly pierced the air, rebounding off the stone walls and lofty ceiling. Nessa nearly jumped out of her skin, and almost everyone, including me, clamped their hands over their ears. The noise carried on and on, like some shrill, horrible siren, and a few moments later, a figure appeared in the doorway to the right of the podium that led to the rest of Crage Hall. I squinted at the figure, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ears, and saw that it was a woman.

She sauntered over to the center of the room at a leisurely pace and mounted the platform, seemingly oblivious to the siren's whine. Her eyes traveled around the room at large for a moment before her face broke into a wide, indulgent smile. She was a tall, heavy woman in a horrendous bright-red pants-suit that perfectly matched the shade of her lipstick, embellished on the lapel with gaudy orange sequins. Her powdery white hair was pinned back from her broad, pallid face, affording a clear view of her bulgy, heavily-makeupped eyes and penciled eyebrows. She vaguely resembled an overgrown goldfish.

The woman bent down after a minute or so and pushed a button somewhere on the back of the tiktok, and immediately the noise ceased, replaced by a dead silence. Everyone was now staring at the woman.

Still looking down at the robot, the woman laughed, a high-pitched sound that set my teeth on edge. "That will be quite enough, Grommetik, thank you." She straightened back up. "Don't mind Grommetik, ladies. The sound of idle chatter upsets him." She was grinning again, still wearing that indulgent expression. She daintily rubbed her hands together. "_Now then._ We'd best get started. To the new faces out there, I extend the warmest of welcomes to you. I am Madame Morrible, your dean here at Shiz University, and _this_-" she swept her arms around her in an elaborate flourish, "-is Crage Hall. Regardless of what you have come here to study- be it law or linguistics, medicine or philosophy- I know that I speak for all my fellow faculty members when I say we have nothing but the highest hopes for…" her eyes traveled over the crowd yet again, this time lingering on a few specific faces, "some of you." A few girls laughed at this, but stopped quickly as they realized that there was no humor in Morrible's gaze. "And to the old faces out there, welcome back. I have every confidence that you will all have an enriching, possibly even life-changing, year here at Shiz…"

And with that, she launched into a stately, long-winded monologue all about academic achievement and individual greatness, and of the history of "this noble institution", making sure to insert several dry, dusty quotations made by great philosophers and long-dead former deans and professors. Although my attention span tended to last longer than most people's, I felt my mind begin to wander after about ten minutes. I glanced around- most of the girls whose faces I could see wore glazed expressions, and others fidgeted uncomfortably.

At long last, after nearly an hour of talking, Morrible cleared her throat and drummed her fingers on the podium. "And now, ladies, for your room assignments. Those of you who are not first-years are dismissed, and have a lovely evening." Approximately two-thirds of the girls rose and made their way eagerly out of the room, some stopping to grab their luggage, which lay piled near the walls. The tiktok disappeared through the doorway for a moment and re-emerged carrying a large box and a clipboard. Morrible accepted the clipboard and put on a pair of reading glasses, and then began to read from a list of names.

"Let's see…Ah, yes. Miss Melinda Applewood. Hmm…Applewood…Miss Applewood, might you by any chance be the daughter of Mr. Herb Applewood of Applewood Automotive?"

Melinda, a slight, dark-haired girl sitting near the front, nodded.

Morrible smiled a small, secretive smile. "Ah. Excellent. Well, Miss Applewood, welcome to Shiz. You and…" her eyes scanned the list for a moment, "…Miss Oleysia Pritchett may come up and take your keys and orientation schedules from Grommetik here. You will be staying on the fourth floor, Room 425."

Morrible continued down the list, occasionally recognizing and commenting on a surname as she had with Melinda. The room slowly emptied. After about fifteen minutes or so, I looked around, confused. The only students left were me and Nessa. Morrible looked at us and grinned. "You two must be the Thropp sisters, am I correct?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said slowly, wondering why we had been singled out.

"Oh, do come here, ladies," she said, gesturing excitedly with her hand for us to come closer. I wheeled Nessa to the front of the room, and she stepped off the podium to greet us. "And you must be Miss Nessarose," she said warmly, pity in her eyes. She then turned to me and extended her hand. "And Miss…um…"  
"Elphaba," I supplied, trying not to frown as she stared curiously down at my hand, now held in her own.

"Ah. Yes, well, believe me when I say it's a pleasure to meet you both. Now, regarding your room assignments. Miss Elphaba, you will room with…" she glanced at her sheet, and her lips twitched slightly. "…With Miss Upland, who, I believe, has recently found herself without a roommate. Room 222 on the second floor." Grommetik reached into the box and pulled out a yellow envelope with a key taped to the front of it and handed it to me. I took it, slightly unnerved by those red lights that shone from the thing's eyes as it looked at me. Morrible turned to Nessa. "And Miss Nessarose. Your father has phoned the school several times and has made his concern your well-being quite clear, so I have decided that it would be best if you and your caretaker, who this year will be Miss Hallia Bristol, live in my wing of the Faculty Quarters so that I may keep an eye on you and assist you when needed."

Nessa's eyes went wide with mortification. This qualified as exactly the sort of "special attention" that she had been dreading.

Then something occurred to me. "But that's on the other side of the campus from here," I said.

"Yes," Morrible began, clearly not seeing my point.

"Madame," I said, fighting to keep my voice respectful. "She needs to stay near me. That's what my father wanted. I've always looked after-"

"Oh, nonsense," Morrible said, moving to stand behind Nessa's wheelchair and laying her hands on the handlebars. "I assure you, dear, she's in good hands." Nessa shot me a panicked glance.

"But-" I began, but Morrible ignored me.

"Now, let's collect your things, shall we?" She started wheeling Nessa towards the wall where the luggage was piled.

"No, please, Madame-" I was babbling, and suddenly a familiar roaring began to fill my ears. Without a second thought, I raised my hands and screamed, "STOP!"

Morrible gasped, her hands flying from the handlebars as if they had been burnt. Nessa turned her head to stare at me, frightened, and at the same time, her chair pivoted toward me and began to roll itself my way. I automatically grabbed the handlebars and held them possessively.

It was then that I realized what I'd just done, and as I stared at Morrible, whose mouth was hanging open, dread began to blossom in the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and repeated to myself the same words Nessa had said earlier: _I do not need this right now…Not today…_

The silence that followed seemed endless. Morrible stood there looking at me for a long time, her expression blank. I fidgeted nervously, and eventually I cleared my throat and muttered, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Miss Thropp," Morrible said tightly. Her eyes were cold and calculating. "You will meet me tomorrow morning in my office at 8 sharp. In the meantime, please excuse yourself to your dormitory."

"Yes, ma'am," I muttered, turning numbly and letting my feet carry me over to my stack of luggage. That was it, then. The year hadn't even begun yet, and she was going to expel me. I could feel angry tears stinging my eyes.

I picked up my luggage, struggling under the weight of it, and tried to walk past them both without making eye contact with either of them. "Night, Nessa," I said hollowly as I passed her.

"Night, Fae," she whispered back miserably.

As I lugged the bags up the narrow stone stairwell to the second floor, I fought to stay calm. Oz, I'd only been here for one day. Why? _Why_ did this have to happen today of all days? Just when I thought I'd gotten better at controlling it…

Dad was going to kill me.

I took a deep, shaky breath when I got to the top of the stairs. I wasn't about to let my roommate see me in complete hysterics, even if I was only going to be staying with her for one night. I walked down the long hall, my arms feeling as though they were about to fall off, and counted the brass number plates that hung on the dark wood doors. _226…224…_

When I came to Room 222, I heard the sound of a voice coming from inside the room, one that was chatting animatedly. I knocked on the door, not wanting to have to drop everything to grab my key. No one answered. I knocked again, and after about thirty seconds, the door opened.

The blonde girl, the one called Glinda, was standing in the doorway, her phone held up to her ear. "He said that?" she was saying. "Really? Wow, Lacey. Well, I think you should-" Then she saw me, and she dropped the phone. It hit the stone floor with a resounding _crack_.

"Oh. My. _God._"


	8. Chapter 8

**Unlimited Chapter Eight**

**I know you guys deserve way more of an update than this and I'm sorry, but I kinda wanted this section to stand alone!**

_There's been some confusion, for you see my roommate is…_

_Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe…_

_-Glinda, Act 1_

_***_

No.

This could _not _be happening.

But there she was, standing right in front of me in all her greenness, looking kind of annoyed.

Damn it. I guess the universe really _was_ out to get me.

"Glinda?" Lacey's faint voice, coming from the phone that I now realized was on the floor, interrupted the silence. I bent down to pick it up. "I'll call you back, Lacey," I muttered before snapping the phone shut and shoving it into my pocket. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping that when I opened them, the Grasshopper would be gone.

I opened them. She wasn't. So I tried a different tactic: crossing my arms and glaring at her. "What do you want?" I snapped.

The girl sighed, and then said, in a strained voice, "Hi. I'm Elphaba Thropp. Your roommate."

She tried to take a step towards the door, but I didn't move. "Since when?"

"Since ten minutes ago, according to the Dean," she said dryly, her eyes narrowing. "Now can I come in?"

I turned on my heel, stomped into the room, and sat down hard on my bed, hoping that she'd take the hint. I was turned towards the wall, but I could hear her trying to make her way around the piles of boxes that I hadn't yet finished unpacking. A few seconds later, there was a loud yelp followed by the sound of something heavy crashing to the floor and a few muttered oaths. I didn't turn around.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw that I had a message from Milla.

_**-Hey glin hows the new roomie thing goin**_

I glanced over at said "roomie", who had managed to make her way over to her bed, which was on the other side of the room opposite my own bed. She was staring out the window, her expression hard and her bony arms crossed tight over her chest.

So she was the brooding type. Great.

I sighed and sent Milla a reply:

**-Ummm r u unpacked yet**

**-No. **_**Y?**_

_**-**_**Any chance u changed ur mind bout movin 2 Briscoe**

**-**_**No…**_

_**-**_**I NEED u 2 b my roomie again**

**-**_**Y? Is the new girl rly that bad?**_

I typed "**YES!!!**" and nearly pressed the "send" button, but I hesitated. If I told her that, she'd immediately try to pump me for details, which I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to give her. But I needed help, and I needed it _now_, and Milla was my best bet. So, I decided to opt for the truth and hope she'd pity me. And besides, although Mil was by no means a touchy-feely type of person, she wasn't into gossip as much as Pfannee and ShenShen, so she'd probably keep quiet about it if I asked her.

**-YES!!!**

_**-Who is she**_

**-The green girl**

In the seconds after I sent that last message, I could just imagine Milla receiving it and sniggering as she read it. I looked up at the girl, who was now struggling to shove what looked like a guitar case into the cramped space under her bed, and frowned. The phone buzzed again.

-_**OMG rly???**_

_**-**_**Unfortunitly yes**

**-**_**Its "unfortunately" glin**_

_**-**_**Ok smartass…so will u move back here wit me**

_**-Hell no just wait til u c my new room…its HUGE**_

**-Come on plz???**

**-**_**Again is she rly that bad? Well aside from the obvious…i mean what if she's rly nice **_

_**-**_**"Nice"??? WTF! Ur NOT helpin here!!!**

**-**_**Y does it matter even if she is a dork & u 2 do end up rly hating each other? U never hang out in ur dorm that much anyway so its not like u gotta b around her all the time….**_

I resisted the urge to throw the phone out the window. She just didn't get it. If anyone found out that I had _her_ as a roommate, my life would be, figuratively, over.

**-Mil she's gonna ruin evrything**

**-**_**Ruin what exactly???**_

I growled under my breath. Although Milla was the type of person who had a bit of an obnoxious superiority complex, she never seemed to understand the intricate complexities of social ladders. She probably considered herself "above" them…

Before I got a chance to respond, I got another message.

_-__**This is about fiyero isn't it?**_

I immediately felt my cheeks flush.

**-Look Mil plz just b my roomie again! Just tell morrible u changed ur mind about briscoe… PLEASE IM BEGGIN U **

**-**_**Like morrible would rly put us back 2gether anyway…she totally hates u…look glin im not changin my mind so u need 2 deal**_

**-Y r u bein such a bitch about this**

_**-GOODNIGHT, GLINDA.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Unlimited: A Modern Retelling of Wicked**

**Chapter 9**

**I'm really sorry about the wait. But the semester's over, so I guess I have no excuse now. We're going to try an entirely different point of view for this chapter…so here goes. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.**

**I promise you'll find out all about Elphie's fateful meeting with Morrible very soon, but not in this chapter. **

_The next day…_

_Alright_, I was thinking to myself as we walked through the parking lot of the train station, steering a huge luggage cart towards Avaric's car. _If we can get all this stuff up to the dorms in maybe thirty minutes, I still have time to get to the bookstore before lunch to beat the big textbook rush, and then… _

"Boq," Gareth interrupted my train of thought, grabbing the luggage rack and stopping me. "Uh, the car's right here."

I blinked and looked, well, _up_ at him. He was abnormally tall even for a Gillikinese guy, and I was…uh…Munchkin. Which put me at about five-foot-three. "Oh. Sorry."

Fiyero, standing by Gareth, rolled his eyes. Avaric dug his keys out of his pocket and popped open the trunk of the car.

"Is it all gonna fit?" Gareth asked, staring dubiously at the tiny, sports-car-sized trunk and then at the piles of stuff sitting on the luggage racks that Fiyero and I were pushing.

"Eh, we'll make it work," Fiyero said with a shrug, swinging one of his bags over his shoulder and plopping it unceremoniously into the trunk. I frowned, noticing that this bag alone took up about half of the space, but Gareth and I got to work loading our stuff in next to it, shoving it hard so it would all fit.

It was Saturday morning, and all the student luggage that hadn't fit into the passenger trains had just been delivered today. Luggage transport hadn't been a problem for Avaric, because he lived about two hours from here and drove himself along with his stuff, but Gareth, Fiyero, and I had all taken the train. So we were trying to shove all our stuff into his tiny car and drive it all up to Three Queens, where Fiyero, Avaric, Gareth, and pretty much the entire baseball team lived, and then over to Briscoe where I stayed.

The luggage issue was yet another thing about this school that I didn't understand. It was part of the Shiz's strict "no unauthorized visitors" policy- a policy that included our families, even on move-in day. The only time they were ever allowed on campus was on special open-house or visitation days and for some select sporting events. It was apparently the procedure they'd followed ever since the school first opened. I had no idea why it was still enforced, or how they even managed to enforce it when half the students at this school were from the most wealthy, influential families in Oz who no doubt wanted to have some say in their children's educations. It wasn't like the school really had anything to hide. Or at least, I didn't think it did… At any rate, it always made move-in day a real pain in the you-know-where.

It took several minutes of shoving, but eventually we managed to cram everything into the tiny car. Well, sort of. The trunk wouldn't shut all the way, and a huge pile of bags, most of them Fiyero's, were sitting between Gareth and me in the backseat, squishing us both against the car doors.

"Are we ready yet?" Avaric growled, revving up the engine. "Because _some _of us,"-he looked pointedly at me- "have places to be today."

"Yeah, I gotta meet Sarima after her shift for lunch," Fiyero said, his hand hanging lazily out of his passenger's side window.

"You have _another _date?" I heard Gareth ask from the other side of the luggage pile.

"Uh-huh," Fiyero muttered contentedly.

"Isn't Sarima kind of a clingy, whiny bitch?" he asked.

Fiyero shrugged. "She's hot."

"Hell yeah," Avaric agreed enthusiastically.

"Yeah, but…I don't know," Gareth said. "Seems to me like more trouble than it's worth."

Fiyero turned around to look back at him, a smug grin on his face. "And _that_, my friend, is why you have trouble getting girls."

"What do you mean?" he shot back incredulously.

I turned to look out the window so they wouldn't see me roll my eyes. _Here it comes…_ The Fiyero's-personal-philosophy-regarding-the-opposite-sex speech.

"What I _mean_," he began, "is that it really isn't all that hard to make chicks happy. Take them places. Buy them stuff. Tell them they look pretty. They'll be putty in your hands after that. _Your _problem is that you give up too soon."

"But Sarima-" he began.

"…has one fantastic ass," Avaric finished.

"Exactly," Fiyero agreed. "Which is why she's worth the effort. So all I gotta do is keep her happy, and when she's happy, then I-"

"…get laid," Avaric supplied.

This time I couldn't hold back my exasperated sigh.

Fiyero laughed. "Well, I wasn't going to put it so, um, _indelicately_, but…" he high-fived Avaric. "Yeah, I get some action. Not gonna lie."

"And what happens when you mess up and she dumps you?" I asked, irritated.

Fiyero smirked. "Alright, first off, not gonna happen. And even if it did happen, all you have to do is pick someone else."

"Dude, this is Boq we're talking about," Avaric leered. "He couldn't ever just _pick someone else_, you know that. He's all about the 'emotional attachment' bullshit."

_Damn it_, I thought as I felt my face flush. They were going to, yet again, bring up the Milla thing.

"Yes, that does seem to be a problem for you, doesn't it?" Fiyero asked in a voice full of false sympathy. Avaric and Gareth snorted.

Nine months later, and they _still _wouldn't leave me alone about it. Milla dumped me pretty abruptly last semester after we'd been going out for a few months. The guys on the team all laughed at the fact that I was clearly upset about it, saying that it must have happened because I'm no good in bed. What I hadn't told them was that I hadn't actually _slept _with her at that point… I had my own suspicions that that was part of the reason she left me. I think I took things more seriously than she did, and I felt like a total idiot for not considering that she only thought of it as something casual or temporary. But aside from her, I had little to no experience in the dating area, so I'm not sure I would've been able to tell the difference anyhow. And no, I hadn't had a girlfriend since.

Avaric turned to look at me and opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by Gareth's abrupt yell.

"Avaric, STOP!"

Avaric stomped hard on the brakes, and my stomach lurched when we were all suddenly jolted forward. The car screeched to a halt, mere inches from a tall figure standing in the road, in the middle of what I now realized was a crosswalk.

Avaric swore loudly, his fingers now clenching the steering wheel in a death-grip. Gasping for breath, my heart now pounding at a billion miles an hour, I squinted at the figure.

It was a girl. She looked tall for her age, maybe five-eight or five-nine, and was fairly thin, dressed in a baggy black sweater and ill-fitting jeans. Her long, dark hair was pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail, affording a clear view of her wide, terrified eyes.

And…

I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't seeing things, but I wasn't.

The girl was _green._

Green, and now headed straight for the driver's side door.

"Oh my God," Avaric whispered, gawking at her.  
Fiyero, whose face had gone slightly pale from our near-accident, now looked as though he was trying not to laugh.

The girl was now standing just outside Avaric's door. She was still breathing hard and her hands were shaking a bit, but her eyes were steely and she looked extremely pissed off. And yes, there was no mistaking it: her skin was a pale emerald color.

She rapped hard on Avaric's window and then crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him through the tinted glass.

Avaric stared at her for a moment with mingled confusion and amusement. Then he shrugged and rolled down the window. "Yeah?" he asked bluntly, his eyebrows raised.

"_Excuse _me," the girl said heatedly, her eyes flashing. "But this is a _crosswalk. _You almost ran me over!"

"Maybe he saw green and thought it meant go," Fiyero sniggered to Gareth in a voice that he probably knew the girl could hear. Gareth barely stifled a chuckle.

Her dark eyes widened and flickered briefly with hurt. I looked over at Fiyero. For a moment he looked almost apologetic and opened his mouth as if to say something, but the girl recovered before he got the chance, her indignant expression firmly in place once more.

"Watch where you're going," she growled, glaring straight at Fiyero. "You could kill someone."

Fiyero rolled his eyes. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

She turned on her heel. "Don't go yet," she called behind her, stomping back in front of the car. "I dropped my stuff."

_For once in their lives could these two stand not to be complete assholes? _I thought angrily, pushing open the door and getting out of the car. I knew I was going to get hell from them for what I was about to do, but for the time being, I tried not to care.

"Hey," I called to the girl, who was bent over, scooping up a mess of books and papers that littered the ground. "You need some help?"  
I could hear raucous laughter coming from inside the car, and I slammed the door shut.

She looked up at me with surprise, but then she straightened up and smiled uncertainly. "Um, sure. Thank you."

"No problem," I mumbled, bending over to grab a book and trying not to look back at the car.

**To be continued! **


	10. Chapter 10

Unlimited, Chapter 10

**Dedicated to deeplyshallow, who read this chapter over for me and who's been giving me great advice and encouragement and who is without a doubt one of the very best Wicked authors on this site. And to my roommate Erin, who doesn't know much about Wicked, but who lent me her laptop to write it on because mine's unfortunately gone viral.**

"Hey, what took you so long?" Nessa asked, looking nervous as I burst through the door of her large, nicely furnished room about half an hour later. Her caretaker, a smart-looking woman in her mid-twenties with glasses and light brown hair, shot me a questioning look.

"I'm sorry," I panted. "It took me awhile to, uh, find the right building." I didn't feel the need to mention the crosswalk incident, at least not with the caretaker here. "I'm her sister," I added to the woman in explanation. "Madame Morrible gave me permission to…"

"Oh yes, of course," she said, extending a hand and smiling warmly. I noted that she was mercifully not looking at me the way people normally did when they first met me, and I wondered if Nessa had forewarned her. "I'm Hallia. Hallia Bristol."

"Elphaba Thropp." I managed a smile in return.

"We were just going to meet some friends and go to lunch," Nessa said, wheeling herself towards me.

"That's fine," Hallia said, "But you just need to let me know when you'll be back." Her voice was kind, if a bit businesslike. A small frown formed on Nessa's lips. I knew she hated to be "scheduled".

I spoke up. "Is two hours alright?" I asked.

She nodded, and before I knew it, Nessa had grabbed her purse and gotten herself halfway out the door. I bid a quick goodbye to Hallia and followed her out.

"You need to be nice to her," I growled to Nessa when we made it to the elevator.

"Fine," she muttered in a voice that clearly indicated that genuine "nice" was going to be a long time coming. Then she looked up at me, eyes full of worry. "What happened with Morrible?" she asked.

"You didn't get expelled, did you?"

"No," I assured her, feeling my face involuntarily break into a smile.

She looked confused. "But you did get in trouble, didn't you? You know what Dad says about that magic stuff…"

"No, I didn't get in trouble. And if Dad honestly believed all that stuff he says about magic, he'd have to disown both of us for being the demon-spawn of Kumbricia herself."

Nessa's face paled and she automatically glanced around. "Don't talk about that," she snapped in a harsh whisper.

I rolled my eyes. "Ness, we're in a closed elevator. Alone."

She sighed. "I still don't want to hear it."

I bit back the urge to snap, _T__hat doesn't stop it from being true_. What Nessa didn't want to talk about was the fact that she herself possessed some magic. It was fairly weak, and she could hardly do more than move small objects across flat surfaces even when she put all her effort into it. But given Dad's hyperactively Unionist views on such things, Nessa considered it a shameful thing, and she and Dad both pretended that her magic didn't exist. My magic, of course, was not so easy to ignore. Though I'd striven for years to keep it in check so I could keep myself out of trouble, it always found way to resurface, most often in the form of broken electronics and appliances or shattered glass. Those "incidents" always earned me a good long lecture from Dad about my persistent, willful disobedience and how I must be "dabbling in the realms of unspeakable evil" to be causing such unnatural occurrences.

Nessa cleared her throat. "Anyway," she began, not looking at me anymore, "what did happen with Morrible, then?"

My smile returned and I told her, hoping that saying it out loud would help me believe that it was really true. "Apparently, I'm going to be in her sorcery seminar."

Nessa's mouth fell open. "You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

She looked distressed. "Fae, you know Dad won't let you. And…and besides, don't you think you should be trying to…"

"Ignore it for the rest of my life because it's some sort of horrible affliction?" I raised an eyebrow, and she looked guilty. "Don't start on me, Ness."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. But still, do you really think Dad's gonna pay for you to get sorcery lessons?"

"I think so," I said slowly. "I mean, if it gets me a job in Emerald City." Sorcery was an extreme rarity in Oz, and the few individuals with any real talent who were not scared away from it by Unionist convictions were pretty much guaranteed a job working for the government. It was something I'd never considered before today, because I hadn't ever thought of the weird things I could do as "talent." "And besides," I added, "it counts as course credit."

"What kind of credit?" she asked, still clearly not convinced that this was a good idea.

"Quantitative. Which means I'll be taking Sorcery instead of Calculus." And I certainly wasn't complaining when Morrible informed me of this and rearranged my schedule accordingly- I was decent at math, but I found it incredibly dull.

"Are there any other sorcery students here?" she asked.

"No."

"And this is one-on-one with her?"

"Yes."

"Well, congratulations then," she said, still sounding dubious.

"You know what else she said?" I added, now fighting to keep my voice casual as I prepared to tell her the part of all this that I could still scarcely let myself believe. "She said…she said that what I did earlier…that it was powerful magic, _really_ powerful, more powerful than she's seen in years."

"Well it certainly felt powerful," Nessa muttered. "So what does that mean for you?"

"She says she's considering contacting the Wizard about me. Apparently he's been looking for a magically proficient assistant."

We were out of the elevator in the carpeted, wood-paneled hall of the main floor at this point. When I said these words, Nessa's hands dropped from the wheels and she stared up at me. Her expression of shock quickly turned into an awed, delighted smile. "Are you serious?" she whispered. I could only grin in response. "Fae, that's wonderful," she laughed. "And…and, well of course Dad will be proud of you. I mean, how could he not be? Wow," she breathed. "The Wizard."

"See," I said, grabbing the handlebars and pushing her forward. "If the Wizard thinks that sorcery's such a valuable thing, it can't be as awful as Dad thinks."

Nessa was silent for awhile, and I could see that she was mulling over the prospect of having a sister that was advisor to the Wizard. And as idiotic as I no doubt looked, I still couldn't stop smiling.

"So…" she asked after awhile. "Was Morrible as bad as Olivia and Mirabelle said?"

"Um…" I began, not exactly sure how to answer. "She seemed okay to me…" She was all smiles and indulgent pride when I'd talked to her, and I was much too focused on my own dizzying relief at the fact I wasn't expelled and astonishment that anybody, least of all the Wizard, could ever think that I'd make a decent sorceress. Sure, she was a bit full of herself, but she didn't exactly seem hateful or any of the things the Mahons had said. "…But I guess I'll find out. Hey, speaking of Olivia and Mirabelle, is it them that we're meeting for lunch?"

"No. It's Amy, Leon, Crope, and…and what's-his-name."

"Tibbett?"

"Right, him," she said. And then, failing miserably at keeping her tone nonchalant, she added, "And Amy says that those two convinced their friend from the baseball team to come along." She beamed up at me.

Ah. So that would explain why she was wearing her favorite shirt and her purple eyeliner. I tried to ignore the unpleasant lurching feeling in my stomach at the thought that I was about to go have lunch with the guy who'd been in the car that had nearly flattened me earlier, and the guy who was probably getting hell from his friends right now for being the only one who apologized to me afterwards.

***

But meeting him again was not nearly as awkward as I had expected.

We ate at the café not far from the campus, a place whose atmosphere was distinctly collegiate, complete with sticky tables, cheap but good food, some framed art pieces hanging on the brightly colored walls, and fairly dull indie music playing in the background. Amy and Leon were waiting for us at a table by the window when we got there. Amy was chatting animatedly at him, as bubbly as she had been yesterday, and Leon was staring at the table, twisting a napkin up in his hands.

By the time the waitress arrived, clearly a student herself, came by to take our drink orders, Crope and Tibbett had arrived with Boq.

Boq looked genuinely pleased to be here; a broad grin spread across his face as he pulled up a chair next to Crope, who sat across from me. Tibbett slid into the empty seat to my right.

He waved at us all enthusiastically. "Hi, er, everyone. I'm Boq."

Leon and I both muttered an incoherent greeting, and Leon resumed staring down at his hands. "Yes, I know," Amy said with a shy smile.

Nessa's cheeks flushed prettily and the tips of her ears went pink. She beamed at him. "Nessarose Thropp. Nice to meet you." He met her eyes and nodded politely before turning back to Crope, who had begun to chatter excitedly at him. Nessa frowned, clearly having expected more of his attention.

I looked at him. He wasn't wearing his team hoodie anymore, and it surprised and pleased me to see how naturally he seemed to fit into our mismatched little group. His appearance was not very remarkable, but he had large, eager brown eyes, a sweet smile, and floppy brown hair. He was short and stocky and not exactly built like an athlete, but I could see the defined muscle in his arms and shoulders that indicated what Amy had told me earlier, that he was a talented pitcher. I wondered how long it would take before Nessa would win him over, and I began to think that he might be nicer to be around than some of Nessa's past boyfriends, even if she only managed to reel him in with sympathy.

Boq's voice cut into my train of thought. "…sorry about earlier, by the way," he was saying.

"Huh?"

"Avaric almost turning you into roadkill, I mean," he said guiltily. "He was being a jerk, they all were."

I suppressed the anger that flared up in my chest at the thought of his friends and shrugged. "Not your fault. Thanks for helping me out."

"No problem, uh…" he trailed off awkwardly.

"Elphaba," I supplied, apprehensively wondering how much of a "problem" his helping me had actually caused.

He smiled. "At any rate, I'm glad to be rid of 'em, for now, anyway. Thanks for rescuing me, guys," he added with a grateful look at Crope and Tibbett.

"You're welcome!" Tibbett chirped.

"And I'm willing to ignore the fact that Avaric called us your 'boyfriends' when we met up with you at the bookstore," Crope said with a touch of bitterness.

"Sorry," Boq muttered.

"Nah, forget it. We're just glad you're here," he said. "We can take his crap. Next time he says something like that, though, I'm gonna hit on him, I swear."

"Ooh, please to be recording that if you ever really be doing it," Amy giggled. "He to be deserving it."

"Not that we weren't just a little bit flattered by his insinuation," Crope muttered, grinning evilly and slinging his arm around Boq's shoulders. Boq rolled his eyes.

"Well," Boq continued, "to both of you, and to Elphaba, I'm sorry about them. Especially about Avaric…"

"So he's the worst one?" I asked. In truth, it hadn't been Avaric who I'd been sorely tempted to punch in the jaw.

"Yeah, well, he's the worst one I have to put up with, anyway. I'm not sure he knows how to be anything _but _a jerk. Gareth's decent most of the time, though. And Fiyero, well…"

"Yeah, I think I got a pretty good idea about him earlier," I said coldly.

"Well, yes," he sighed. "You saw. Fiyero's pretty obnoxious. But, uh, very occasionally, he can be okay, as long as no one's looking."

"Sure," Amy growled.

He shrugged. "I helped him work on his pitching a bit last semester. He was tolerable, even if it was probably just 'cause he wanted my help. But as a general rule, when it comes to the majority of the athletes at Shiz…"

"Lock up your daughters," Crope finished grimly.

***

By the time the food came, I was idly looking over my class schedule (Sociology II, History of Ozian Civilizations, Life Sciences I, Gillikinese Literature, and now Sorcery), as Crope described to Amy and Leon the plot of the fall musical. The show was set in Emerald City about twenty years ago during the last days of the Ozma, and it dealt with poverty, starving artists, and the HIV epidemic. Despite himself, Leon began to look very interested as he listened. Nessa snuck glances at Boq, who to her disappointment was paying far more attention to his turkey sub than he was to her.

Eventually, Amy asked, "Leon, Elphaba, Nessa. You be having roommates, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Leon said. "Um…he's an Engineering major, and he's from the Vinkus. He's nice, but I can't really pronounce his name."

"Her name's Hallia," Nessa said, rather stiffly. "I don't know much about her yet. Elphaba?" She looked at me then, her eyes pleading.

"Glinda Upland," I said quickly. "My roommate is Glinda Upland."

The moment I said it, Boq looked up, his eyes wide as saucers.

Crope smirked. "Oh really?"

Boq quickly regained his composure and began to munch determinedly on his fries, but he was unable to hide the spots of color that had appeared on his cheeks or the little smile that had lighted on his lips.

***

**To be continued, my dears. *Sigh*… I do wonder if this story shall ever be finished, or if it'll just go on…and on…and on. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Unlimited Chapter 11**

**A really big chapter for you guys, because I know that "sorry" can't begin to cover my lack-of-updates. Oh, and at 11 chapters and counting, this is officially my longest fanfic ever! **

"…**And there was much rejoicing."**

_Elphie's POV_

The rest of my weekend was spent frantically studying the many spellbooks that Morrible had given me to study. My first Sorcery lesson would be Tuesday afternoon, and for that reason Morrible gave me permission to skip the "new student orientation" events that the rest of the new students were attending so that I could learn as much as I could beforehand. This gesture gave me hope—obviously she was enthusiastic to teach me—but it intimidated me just as much, because clearly she meant business, and I was scared of disappointing her. So that weekend I found myself up into the early hours of the morning, memorizing everything from the pronunciation of commonly used words in incantations to what wood is most effective for carving practice wands to what hand motions ought to accompany certain types of spells.

And Glinda… Glinda only got worse as the weekend went on. She was out most of the time, and when she wasn't, she did her best not to acknowledge my presence. She spent the majority of her time flopped out on her bed and texting her friends, and every now and then she'd let out a high, nasally laugh as she read one of the messages. Occasionally, I'd catch her staring incredulously at my spellbooks, but for the most part she continued to ignore my existence, so I ignored hers. But on Sunday afternoon, much to my amusement, when I got a bit sick of my textbooks and pulled out my guitar and started to quietly pluck out a classical piece I really liked, she shot me a spectacular scowl and proceeded to scoop up her phone and stomp into the bathroom. (Yes, every dorm at Shiz has its own bathroom—one of the perks of attending a ridiculously old school with a ridiculously high tuition.) I think she heard me laughing before she slammed the door.

Monday finally came, and I woke up early. Well, relatively early for a college student: about 8 AM. My first class wasn't until 9:30 but I really needed a shower and time to grab breakfast, as well as time to bring Nessa to her first class because she was still opposed to Hallia's escorting services. I got up early enough that I got the bathroom to myself, and Glinda was still a softly snoring lump on the bed when I left. I vaguely wondered whether she'd be in any of my classes. I wasn't sure what year she was, and needless to say, we hadn't compared schedules. Part of me really hoped we wouldn't have to deal with one another in a classroom, given Shiz's small student-teacher ratio. But a small, vindictive part of me hoped that we would be, because it would be amusing to watch her try to go out of her way to avoid me.

It was 8:30 by the time I'd made my way down to the dining hall with Nessa . Along the way, out in the chilly air as my still-wet hair dampened the back of my shirt, I realized I needed to invest in the purchase of a hair dryer. Otherwise, my hair was going to be limp, wet, stringy and _cold_ every morning for the rest of the semester. I ran my fingers through it in a vain attempt to make it look a little better, but to no avail. Not that the crowd that was waiting for us at the dining hall probably cared—it was Crope, Tibbett, Leon, Idina and Falyn this morning. And they were too engrossed in yet another discussion about the fall musical to take notice in much else. This time, it had something to do with the fact that Idina, who was helping the drama professors with the casting, wanted Crope to try out for one role when Crope had his eye on another.

"I don't see how it's fair," he was saying, throwing up his hands as I put down my tray of cereal and orange juice, "that you want to give me the drag role just because I'm 'the gay one'."

"That's not why I—" she began, and then heaved a frustrated sigh.

"Yeah, if _questionable_ sexuality was the only qualification," Falyn added, "She'd have approximately three quarters of the male drama students to pick from. Not that I'm generalizing," she added quickly when Crope glowered at her.

"Anyway," Crope continued, "You know I'm not nearly coordinated enough to prance around in transvestite-length high heels, and besides, I look hideous in drag, trust me."

"You do not," Tibbett muttered mischievously. Crope elbowed him.

"Pleeeeease?" Idina pouted.

"Look, you know what part I want," he told her.

"What part's that?" Nessa asked. She looked a bit ruffled by this talk of transvestitism, but curious. Idina and Falyn explained that he wanted to play the narrator of the show, who was an aspiring filmmaker and one of two male leads.

"And I hear Leon is going out for the big romantic lead, huh, hotshot?" Crope asked teasingly. Leon's cheeks flushed but he said nothing.

Idina laughed. "Well, you'd have to lose the glasses and the dorky hair, but like I said, I need someone who can play the guitar, so I've got my eye on you."

Leon smiled nervously.

"So…" Idina turned to Nessa and me. "Auditions are Friday, you guys. Just saying."

I caught Nessa's eye, and she snorted. I just smiled.

"What?" she said, obviously disappointed by our apparent disinterest in her show.

"Well, I can't really sing," Nessa said. I didn't fail to notice that she omitted any mention of dancing.

"And I can't…" I started.

"…Fae couldn't dance her way out of a wet paper bag," she finished.

"Well, no need to put it so delicately," I muttered. But it was true. Definitely true.

Idina looked crestfallen. "Oh," she muttered. And that was the end of that, but before we could leave for class she made us both promise to come to the show to cheer everyone on.

I dropped Nessa off at her Political Science class before heading off to my Gillikinese Lit class, planning to pick her up afterwards and drop her off at her Music Theory class. I knew I'd have to talk to her later about how she was going to have to let Hallia start helping her because I couldn't (and didn't exactly want to) tote her around to every single class of hers. But today, I didn't bother to refute her when she asked, because her first-day nervousness was palpable and because I had an hour break between my first two classes.

Gillikinese Lit and Sociology II were both relatively uneventful. For the most part, all that happened in both was that the professors handed out a class syllabus, explained the grading system, lectured a bit about plagiarism and the Shiz University Honor Code, and let us out early. It was too early in the semester to gauge whether or not I was going to like either of these professors, but I was quite grateful that both of them pretended not to notice my skin color. Glinda was in neither class, but I recognized her friend Milla in Sociology, her bright red fingernails drumming impatiently against the desktop while the teacher droned on about the importance of sociological studies in modern society. And fortunately, Olivia was in my Lit class. I sat next to her, watching her alternately take notes and doodle out of the corner of my eye. Mirabelle, who was not taking the class, curled up to take a nap on top of Olivia's pencil case.

It wasn't until my Life Sciences class that things got interesting.

…Well, maybe "interesting" isn't exactly the right word for it.

The lab itself was a big, open room with reddish stone walls and a vaulted ceiling, which seemed quite at odds with the immaculate black countertops, beakers, test tubes, and shining steel lab equipment. Glaring fluorescent lights were suspended over our heads. The class slowly filtered in, groups of friends seating themselves together around the various lab tables. Crope and Tibbett, also taking this class, saw me come in and waved me over to their table. I slid into a tall swiveling chair, noting that the seat across from me was empty. Pulling out my textbook and idly flipping through it, I half-listened as Crope and Tibbett continued to gab on about the musical. When I heard their exclamations of joy, however, I looked up. Boq was standing in the doorway. When he saw this table, his face lit up and he made a beeline for the empty chair. He hesitated, though, before getting into the chair, giving me an awkward smile. "Uh, hey, d'you mind if I sit here?" he asked me.

"No, go ahead. Why would I mind?" I asked.

"Because I hear from people who have taken Nikidik's classes that whoever you're sitting across from is the person you're stuck with as a lab partner for the rest of the semester," he said, now looking tentatively hopeful.

"That's fine," I said, thankful that I'd be paired with someone who was likely to actually do his work, unlike many of the lab partners I'd wound up with in my high school science classes.

"Thanks," he said, relieved, climbing onto the tall chair. I couldn't see his feet, but I guessed that they were probably dangling off the floor. "Because, uh, I'd sort of rather not work with a few of the people taking this class."

"Who, specifically?" Crope asked, his eyes narrowed and scanning the room.

"Speak of the devil," Boq said grimly a moment later, when Avaric appeared in the doorway. Avaric rolled his eyes when he saw where Boq was seated, then plopped himself into a seat across from a brunette whose tight shirt exposed an ample amount of cleavage.

"Ah. I see," Tibbett said primly.

"Fiyero too, but he's not here yet," Boq said. He glanced at his watch. "He'll probably be late. He tends to do that."

A minute or so later, an elderly, bearded professor in an old-fashioned tweed suit and waistcoat and thick plastic-framed glasses ambled into the classroom, arms full of books.

"Doctor Nikidik," Crope whispered to me.

Doctor Nikidik dumped the books onto the table at the head of the room, and then sloppily wrote on the wipe-board, in black marker and all caps, his name and the name of the course. He then proceeded to follow the same formula that all my other teachers had today: passing around the syllabus and lecturing about the format of the course. The man had a stuffy, terribly distinguished air about him, but for all this pompousness, I could only catch every other word he said. This was because his speech was delivered in the form of quiet mumbling, as if he were rehearsing a lecture to himself rather than speaking to a class.

After awhile, he seemed to be finished with his speech, because he was pulling a small corked bottle from the pocket of his blazer and motioning for us all to gather around.

Even up close I had to strain to hear what he was saying, but the words that followed sounded something like this: "…Science and sorcery…at odds with one another…despite relative obscurity of magical research…miracles of scientific discovery…long eclipsed by magical phenomena…starting the semester…little demonstration... 'Extract of Biological Intention'…brief artificial animation of organic substances...incomplete research…but purely scientific phenomenon…nothing magical about it…" Still muttering, he bustled over to a cabinet and pulled out what looked like dead specimens of large, iridescent blue beetles, labeled and pinned to a specimen collection board. He unpinned a few of the insects and set them in a row on the table. He further muttered something about everyone holding very still and not making any sudden movements as he uncorked the bottle in his hand, held it up high, and tipped it upside down over the desk. A fine white powder drifted down over the countertop, swirling and churning like dancing particles of dust. The class held its collective breath as the powder continued its descent toward the beetles, but mere inches from the tabletop, a sudden breeze seemed to catch the particles and they flurried upwards towards the ceiling.

"What in the…" Nikidik spluttered angrily, eyes darting around the room to find the disturbance. Slowly, all eyes turned toward the door of the room.

And there stood Fiyero, his books in his arms, looking thoroughly confused at the class's peculiar reaction to his late arrival. Boq let out an agitated sigh; Avaric snorted. I just glared at him, having been fascinated to see what this "miracle powder" could do.

"Damn it all, boy!" Nikidik roared, finally audible for the first time all period. "You fail my class once, _abysmally _might I add, and now you have the _audacity_ to ruin it for those of us who actually _respect _the pursuit of knowledge and the art of scientific inquiry!" His face was slowly turning purple, and I swear his eyes were bulging out of his head.

Fiyero just stood there, his mouth hanging open, before uttering a fairly unintelligent-sounding "Uh…I'm sorry?"

"Just…sit…down," Nikidik growled, before huffily turning his back to the class to collect and re-pin the beetles.

The rest of the class stood around in shocked silence, unsure of what to do. Then Crope nudged me in the ribs and pointed towards the ceiling. "Look!"

I looked, and I wasn't sure whether to gasp in wonder or laugh aloud. Above the wipe board and near the ceiling there was a plaque mounted to the wall, from which protruded an enormous pair of stag's antlers. The white dust that Fiyero's entrance had disrupted was now twining its way around the antlers in smoke-like tendrils. And the antlers were quivering—twitching, even—literally brought to life by the dust.

As the rest of the class began to point and whisper excitedly at this occurrence, the twitching became more and more violent until the antlers were shuddering and shaking, the plaque itself knocking against the wall. The second Nikidik finally looked up to see what was the cause of the commotion, the antlers ripped themselves off the plaque with an earsplitting _crack _and floated slowly down to hang suspended in the air before him. Some students jumped back at this point, but Nikidik was completely nonplussed, even though the antlers stood upright as though an invisible head of a proud and pissed off stag stood between them. They trembled as if with rage.

"Don't look at _me_," he said, irritated. "Blame _that_ one, if you must." He pointed at Fiyero, who had halfway made it to an empty seat but had stopped to watch the antlers. "He's the one who woke you up."

At these words, the antlers slowly, ominously turned themselves midair to face Fiyero. Fiyero hardly had time to blink before the antlers shot through the air, launching themselves at him. He let out a startled yell and threw himself backwards in a vain attempt at escape, but it was too late. One antler had him by the throat and was pinning him against the wall, and the other one was drawn back, level with his eyes, as if poised to run his skull through. His eyes were huge, focused on the antler that was now mere inches from his forehead, and his face had drained of all color. Crope and Tibbett, who were standing closest to him, were the first to snap out of the apparent paralysis that seemed to have settled over the class. Followed soon after by Avaric and a few other students, they tried to scramble over to snatch the antlers, but none of them were quick enough.

A cold and sickening horror washed over me as I realized what was about to happen. He was going to get killed, right here, right now, on the first day of Life Sciences class. And we were all powerless to stop it. Sure, I didn't like this guy, but that didn't mean that I wanted to see him, or anybody for that matter, die a violent and gruesome death right in front of me. And then one word suddenly flashed through me like a bolt of electricity, momentarily drowning out the panicked cries of my classmates: _Stop. _

And before I knew it, my hands were raised and I was shrieking that very word: "STOP!"

A surge of raw, crackling energy pulsed through me, and, a mere second later, the antlers disintegrated, into a dust just as fine as the dust that had brought them to life. Fiyero crumpled to the ground, and at the same time, I stumbled back, immediately feeling weak and dizzy.

And everyone was staring.

First at Fiyero, lying flat on his back in a pile of brownish dust that was all that remained of the antlers, and then back at me. I stumbled backward into Boq and Crope, who caught me and steadied me. It was dead silent.

It was Nikidik who finally snapped everyone out of it. He clapped his hands and declared, in a shaky voice, "Class dismissed." Crope led me by the hand back to my chair, where I sat staring confusedly around the room and feeling strangely distant from the activity going on around me. I could feel everyone's eyes on me still, and I dimly registered a few whispers of "oh my god." Avaric outright gawked at me as he helped Fiyero up, who looked shaken but otherwise fine. I vaguely heard Boq asking in a timid voice if I was alright and Tibbett offering to carry my books, and I blinked a few times and mumbled something about needing to sit down for a few minutes, and they reluctantly agreed. _I'll have to thank them later for not fleeing for their lives, _I thought gratefully as they left for their next classes. All I really wanted to do was put my head down on the tabletop and sleep. The room emptied out, and soon the other people left were me, staring at my folded hands on the table; and Fiyero and Avaric. Avaric was staying behind with Fiyero, who was taking an extra long time to collect his things due to the shock of almost having his head impaled. Avaric kept staring at me as if I had three heads, and I just stared dully back, unable to muster the energy for a proper biting retort. Fiyero didn't look at me while packing up, but oddly enough, on his way out the door, he turned back towards me as if he wanted to say something. Avaric looked from him to me and back before muttering "come on" to his friend and shooting me a withering look. He turned on his heel and left the room. Fiyero lingered for a second longer, now looking sort of conflicted. It was odd, and quite a contrast from the contempt I'd seen in his features the first time we'd met, and I couldn't tell if he wanted to say "thank you" or if he wanted to say "what the hell was that?" But (no surprises here), in the very next second he too had turned and left.

Once they were gone, I stood up. But I didn't move. The room was spinning, and I was afraid that my knees were going to buckle and I was going to fall and hit my head on one of these stupid tables and pass out. I shut my eyes. _Disintegrating solid objects, that's a new one. _And in front of the entire class, no less. Fantastic. But I couldn't bring myself to care overly much about what everyone thought, or even what I'd just learned that I was capable of, because right now I really just wanted to go back to the dorm and sleep. _And maybe get something to eat on the way_, I added mentally as I forced myself to take a step forward and immediately felt lightheaded. _Or else I don't think I'm going to be able to drag myself all the way back to the dorms…_

I don't know how I managed to pack up my stuff or make my way to the dining hall, but it happened somehow. Along the way, I tried to remember if I'd ever managed any sort of magic that had taken this much out of me. In fact, I didn't know magic could leave you feeling this drained. I'd have to ask Morrible about it tomorrow…

_Morrible. _My breath caught, and I suddenly felt nauseous. She'd told me that under absolutely no circumstances was I to attempt any more magic on my own unless she was supervising, at least until I knew what I was doing. And furthermore, after the incident with Nessa, I had earned myself a rather stern lecture from her about how if I kept releasing random bursts of magic that I couldn't control, I'd become a danger to myself and those around me. I suspected that one reason behind this lecture was Morrible's indignation that my first display of magic at Shiz was accompanied with my daring to defy her about Nessa's housing assignment. But, as I'd just seen in Nikidik's class, she was absolutely right. And while she surely couldn't fault me for saving somebody's life, and purely by accident no less, I'd just caused a huge scene—a huge scene that only served to demonstrate just how destructive my magic must be (_disintegration, _for Lurline's sake), and just how little control I had over it. Maybe it was only by pure luck that it was the _antlers _that had turned to dust, and not Fiyero's _head _or something…

By the time I'd staggered into the dining hall, I found myself fighting a bizarre urge to giggle hysterically at the mental image of Fiyero's head suddenly vanishing from his shoulders with a _poof _of swirly dust.

_Damn, I really do need to lie down, _I thought giddily as I reached for a tray.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

_Glinda's POV_

Monday afternoon, about 4:30ish, my classes were finished and I headed back to the room to get changed before meeting Pfannee and Shenshen to go work out. When I got there I noticed something was kinda off—the blinds were closed, the lights were off, and my _roommate_ (urgh, do I have to call her that?) was asleep. That was weird, because she'd been using every spare second she got to study those damn sorcery books. (And I'm still wondering, how the hell did _she _get into the seminar and not _me?_ I mean, I didn't ask if she was in the seminar, but why would she have the books otherwise?) Could she even _ do_ anything? She'd been studying all this time but I hadn't actually seen her try a spell. So up 'til today I'd managed to comfort myself by telling myself she must not have any real props when it came to sorcery.

…That is, until I got the phone call.

It came right as I was about to leave the room, putting on my favorite yellow hoodie and grabbing a water bottle (imported, of course, because normal bottled water is icky). I didn't recognize the number, so I let it ring a few times before answering, sort of hoping that the ring tone would disturb my napping roomie. But it didn't seem to bother her, so I picked up.

"Hello?"

Whoever it was on the other end asked, "Uh…hi? Is- is this Galinda?"

"Um, yeah…who is this?" That was weird. Nobody called me Galinda. Well, not anymore. Not that I didn't prefer it.

"Uh, i-it's Boq. Boq Rush."

"Who?" _Who are you and how the hell did you get my number…_

"Boq, from the baseball team?" he said hopefully.

I tried to remember who that was. I thought I'd heard the name before, and I'd think I would remember someone from _that _team. And then I remembered that semi-cute but loserish guy who'd been staring at me on Friday at dinner. And then I just kinda blurted into the receiver: "Oh! Bick?"

"No, Boq," he corrected, but he sounded sort of pleased.

"Okay…how did you get this number?" Maybe he really is stalking me.

"W-well, I got it from Avaric…" he began.

Ooh. Avaric. Yum. "And how did _he _get it?" Okay, now my interest was piqued. (Hrm…I like that word. _Piqued._)

"He has everyone's number." A nervous laugh.

"Right. Uh, what can I…do for you?"

"Oh, well, uh, I actually wanted to call—That is, my friends asked me to check on…"

"Yes?"  
He cleared his throat. "Is your roommate in? Uh, Elphaba?"  
"Yeah…" I glanced at her snoozing form.

"Is she okay?" He asked.

"I guess…why wouldn't she be?" If this was about _her_, I was ready to be done with this conversation.

"What's she doing? My friends were kinda worried…She wouldn't pick up her phone." He sounded weirdly concerned.

"She's sleeping. Why?"

"Um, no reason. Just making sure that everything's okay after… what happened earlier."

"What happened earlier?"

"She didn't tell you?" He sounded surprised.

I snorted. "No. Not really."

"Oh, uh…well, in Life Sciences class earlier she did some bit of sorcery that looked like it took a lot out of her."

"Sorcery?" My fingers clenched hard around the water bottle, and water started leaking from the top.

"Uh-huh." He still sounded anxious.

"So what happened?" I asked. The weird pleasantness in my voice when I asked the question was funny considering the fact that I wanted scream and throw my phone at the wall.

And then he explained exactly what _happened._

And by the time he finished, I was staring at Elphaba with my mouth wide open like a fish. She did _what_?

"…but he's okay," Bick was saying on the other end. "And we're just making sure she is too."  
"Yeah, she's fine," I said, through numb lips. "Listen, Bick. I gotta go."

"Okay! Have a good—"

I hung up, and then backed up and sunk into m desk chair. My legs felt nice and jelly-like. Maybe the workout could wait.

Oh. My. GOD.

So…what did all this mean for _me_?

First—I was right. She was totally a sorceress. And a freakishly good one, too, by the sound of it. That alone was enough for me to hate her guts. Was I EVER gonna get a shot at the seminar now? Probably not.

Second—Fiyero. Fiyero, Fiyero, Fiyero. Oh, Lurline… He almost freaking _died. _That in itself was totally traumatizing. _Just imagine, _I thought. _Dead on day one of the semester, and all my opportunities gone in an icky splattering of brains…_

Well, not that I hadn't gotten an opportunity before this. It was last winter at the Ozdust, and he may or may not have been a little tipsy, but we talked a little bit and he was about to buy be a drink except some redhead who may or may not have been his girlfriend saw us and got mad. But he was so sweet and funny and _sexy_ and…God, he's perfect.

Anyway, he didn't really look my way after that, because he started dating Sarima shortly after that, but since then I made sure that I hung out around the baseball field for his games and practices, and relocated my usual spot in the dining hall. Milla says I'm being a stalker, but Pfannee and Shenshen are on board with it because they'd jump at any chance to be surrounded by studly guys. And I _swear _I will make him mine.

_And nobody's gonna stand in my way…_I thought, looking at Elphaba again. It's good somebody saved him, but why on earth would _she _do it.

Well, isn't that interesting.

My head was starting to hurt and I decided to put the workout on hold for tonight. I ended up heading out with Pfannee and Shenshen for manicures and coffee instead. They'd found out who my roommate was when they'd come to the room looking for me and Elphaba had answered the door, and now that they knew, _everybody _probably knew. But at least that meant I got to rant to them freely all about this and they were all sympathetic, which was exactly what I needed right then.

Tuesday morning I had a 9:30 AM class, which was awful because I had to get up super early. Elphaba was already up and dressed, at her desk and bent all over those (stupid) sorcery books, a frantic and slightly crazy look in her eye as she studied. _Yeah, she would be the type to take all her classes hideodiously early, _I thought as I stomped into the bathroom.

The first class of the day was History of Ozian Civ. Which was a Dillamond class. Ugh.

Let me explain some things about Dillamond. First is the obvious thing: he's a goat. Or, uh, Goat. The only Animal teacher left at Shiz, when apparently there used to be a lot more. And I should know, because I'd taken the second part of this class (technically this class is Ozian Civ I) last semester, and he would not let us forget for a second that he was the only Animal professor (as if that made him _so _special). I don't really have anything against Animals, but it got obnoxious that somehow every single class, regardless of what we were supposed to be studying, he always ended up lecturing about Animal rights throughout history. Not that I paid all that much attention but still…

Oh, and also, it's pretty much his fault that everybody calls me Glinda instead of my real (and preferred) name, Galinda. With a "ga."

Galinda Ardruenna Upland. Galinda.

Galinda, with a "ga." Is that so hard?

But apparently Goats can't (or aren't polite enough to) talk properly, so all semester I was "Glinda," no matter how much I tried to tell him otherwise. And my friends thought it was funny. That, in addition to the fact that most people tend to slur the "Ga" and the "-linda" together, is why I am now, obnoxiously and permanently, known as "Glinda."

So I showed up for class just about ready to tune Dillamond out, knowing that no matter what I did I was probably not going to get anything higher than a "C" in this class anyway. I scanned the room for people I knew when I got there. The first person I saw, with a jolt, was _her._ She'd pulled out her spellbooks again to study before the teacher arrived, and her eyes never left the page. I sighed. Well, it wasn't like I had to talk to her or anything. And sitting next to her was that perky little Quadling girl who was a part of like every student organization that existed.

And a few rows behind them was Fiyero (need I say it, _Oh my God!)._ My heart did a little tap dance, and I mouthed a silent _thank-you _to whatever power in heaven or on earth that made this happen.

Maybe this period wasn't going to suck after all.

_Elphie's POV_

An Animal teacher?

When I heard the classroom door open and finally made myself look up from the spellbooks, that was the sight that met me. Now this was interesting. Teaching and other such scholarly endeavors were occupations more open to the employment of Animals than others, because they had more to do with the quality of the mind than exclusively human qualifications like walking upright and having opposable thumbs. But even though it was definitely known to happen, it was still surprising given the small and declining Animal population in Oz—to see a white Goat standing on his hind legs, dressed in a suit and bowtie, peering at us through oddly-shaped spectacles that sat low on his pink nose. While I could not make any fair judgments of his character just by looking at him, it did strike me as odd (and absurdly funny) to see him fully garbed in an obviously custom-made suit when most Animals saw it as a hassle to completely clothe themselves. Mirabelle, for example, probably wouldn't be able to move at all if she wore any more than that tiny silk ribbon. The room erupted into whispers at the sight of him. A few people giggled.

Amy elbowed me. "I have been wanting to be taking this class since freshman year," she whispered. "Everybody to be saying Dillamond to be a great teacher."

Surveying the room with calculating eyes (though to be honest, on a Goat's face it was a bit hard to tell), Dillamond drew himself up to his full height of approximately four and a half feet and cleared his throat loudly, tapping a hoof against the stone floor. "Yes, yes, ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and gawk all you want, get it all out of your systems," he said impatiently. His voice sounded refined and distinctly professorly, though not nearly as stuffy as professors like Nikidik. He lingered on a few of the consonant sounds, as though they were slightly difficult for him to pronounce. "There isn't much time to spare," he continued. "It seems that with each passing year my curriculum only gets longer, and the semester shorter." He chuckled to himself. "At any rate," he continued, "Onwards and upwards. Before we can begin, however—" he pointed a hoof at a basket that was sitting on one of the front row desks. "—I prefer to conduct my lectures with minimal distractions. You are to pass the basket around the room and everybody is to place their cellular telephones inside it. _No_ exceptions," he added sternly when a few people groaned. "You may collect them on your way out at the end of the period. Now, then, roll call…"

During the roll call, Dillamond didn't seem to notice my green, and I wondered if he, like Mirabelle, was colorblind, or if he was just considerate. Of the students I only recognized two of the names besides Amy's, and that was "Tiggular, Fiyero" and "Upland, Glinda."

Oh, joy.

I looked behind me. And there they both were, actually sitting _next _to each other, Glinda wearing a smug expression. But based on what I'd overheard from Glinda's phone conversations, I didn't think she was actually dating him yet. They both saw me looking then: Glinda rolled her eyes, and Fiyero looked away.

I suppressed a chuckle at their reactions. _Huh, now maybe the two of them can bond over hating me._

"Now," Dillamond said once all the phones were collected from a less-than-thrilled class. "History of Ozian Civilizations, Part One," he declared with a flourish of his arms (er, forelegs?). "Welcome. And to those of you who have already taken part two, welcome back." He sounded genuinely excited, which made me grin. "As I said, we have vast leagues to cover over the course of the semester, a complete survey of the birth and rise to prominence of each of the four regions of Oz, from the beginning of recorded time to the year 150 Before the Great Descent of our Glorious Wizard. And part two, should you desire to take it, covers the year 150 Before the Descent to the present, the year 25 After the Descent. For each region, beginning with the Gillikin, we will explore the life and times of rulers and of peasants, war and bloodshed, deities, arts, imports, exports, the intricate webs of politics that have been woven through the ages, and in short, what made each region _great. _And additionally," he cleared his throat, "we shall explore a subject of particular interest to myself: the history of the race of Animals in each region and its contribution to society as a whole. And if everyone maintains a positive, eager, and _receptive_ attitude, the semester may very well turn out to be quite an adventure." He smiled.

"Yet before we set sail, however, there is something of critical importance that we must discuss. I had better see each and every one of you taking detailed notes, because an unfortunate side effect of possessing hooves is my inability to write any of this down on the board." There was some scattered laughter from the class. "As you should all be aware," he went on, "this course is writing-intensive and will be graded based upon the quality of your written work. I am far more interested in your ability to formulate and defend your own well-constructed arguments based on what you have gleaned from these lessons than your ability to merely memorize facts by rote. However, it has come to my attention in teaching this class for s few semesters prior to this that precious few of the Shiz student body actually know how to craft a decent essay. The semester will thus begin with a lesson in proper essay structure, without which you cannot hope to do well in my class. You begin with a thesis statement. Now a thesis statement is…"

I took notes, though it was nothing I hadn't heard before, but I'll admit that looming at the forefront of my mind was my impending sorcery lesson— my _first ever_ sorcery lesson, with the _dean _no less. Despite the fact that I'd done little but study for this for the past few days, I still felt like I was going to throw up. It would start soon after this class ended, and all I could do was sit here and take notes, trying to ignore my racing heart as the minutes slipped away.

What if I wasn't ready? What if I could not command my so-called magic at all? Then the one opportunity I'd ever had to make something worthwhile out of my life, to work for the _Wizard_, would be gone. And given that chance, I was convinced that there was so much good I could do. What if it all amounted to nothing…?

When Amy tapped my shoulder to tell me that class was over, I shook my head to clear it and scooped up my books, trying to keep my arms from trembling. I needed to stop this, and now, or else I was going to be too frazzled to do much of anything during the lesson. So even though the fears will still very much present, a feeling not unlike acid churning in the pit of my stomach, I bit them all back and tried to focus on the mindless motion of just _walking_—out of the classroom, down the hall, one foot in front of the other on the flagstone floor—until I had the rotten luck of almost colliding with another student because my eyes had been so intensely focused on my feet. And this particular person was probably the last person I wanted to deal with right now, excepting my roommate.

Three guesses who.

I pushed past him and kept going. Of course, common courtesy would require me to apologize for almost bowling a person over, but to be frank he hardly deserved it, royalty or no, and besides, if I stopped moving right now I thought I might be sick.

"Hey!" Fiyero's voice called behind me. I kept walking.

"Hey!" he said again, but this time I felt a hand on my arm. I wheeled around.

"What?" I demanded. In ridiculously metaphoric terms, my anxiety made me feel a bit like a bomb waiting to detonate, and whatever it was he wanted, he was making my fuse considerably shorter by stopping me.

He just stood there. He had that same awkward, indecisive expression on his face as he'd had yesterday after the antler incident.

"What?" I repeated.

He glanced around the hallway, plainly making sure that there was nobody around within earshot, and then cleared his throat and said in an undertone, "So, uh…look, about yesterday…"

"What about it?" Despite myself I was mildly curious. Was he actually about to attempt a "thank you"?

He fidgeted and didn't look at me. "Well, if you hadn't…y'know, then I would've been… Um, thanks," he finished lamely.

I blinked, not really sure what to say to this. _Huh, so maybe he does have a conscience after all, albeit a small one._ But it sure as hell did not escape me that he'd waited until nobody was looking to talk to me at all, and I certainly hadn't forgotten his comparing me to a traffic light.

He waited for me to say something. When I didn't, he said, "Uh, I'm Fiyero, by the way."

"I know." I raised an eyebrow, suddenly feeling marvelously vindictive.

"So…?"

"So _what_?"

"So I'm saying thank you." He looked irritated.

"I'm aware." I looked him in the eye. "But the truth is, if you meant it, you wouldn't have waited to say it until all your little friends weren't around to hear it."

"What—"

I walked away then, leaving him standing there with his mouth quite comically hanging open. And I felt weirdly good all of a sudden, and much less nervous about my lesson.

I laughed when heard him mutter something along the lines of "Crazy bitch…" at my retreating back.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Unlimited Chapter 13 **_

_**Okay, Dee. I updated. Your turn.  
To my lovely readers—expect some marvelous angst from our very own deeplyshallow in the imminent future.**_

_**PS—Even though I thoroughly enjoy harassing her for updates, Dee has been a wonderful beta and person to bounce ideas off of, and also good about constantly reminding me that people do want to read this story so I need to keep up the updates myself. So THANK YOU!**_

_**Oh and she told me that it's Bang You're Dead's birthday today, so have a happy, fanfictionful birthday!**_

_With a talent like yours, dear, there is a definish chance_

_If you work as you should, you'll be making good._

I won't lie, my good mood steadily dwindled as I approached the office of Shiz University's dean and my (the words still sounded strange even in my head) _sorcery professor_. Apparently the euphoric high one gets from acting like a "crazy bitch" towards one who thoroughly deserves it can only last so long in the face of the sickening anxiety that this impending lesson was causing me. I swear my hands were shaking when I reached for the doorknob of her office. Here goes everything.

The office was massive, stately, and elegant—A circular stone chamber with a carpet of thick purple brocade, high-backed armchairs all over the place, windows set high into the walls that let in sparse shafts of light, an ancient crystal chandelier, all sorts of awards and portraits of previous frowning deans hanging on the walls, and carved mahogany furnishings. It was imposing, removed from time, designed to intimidate generations of students. And even though I'd been in here once before when Morrible had first proposed that I take sorcery lessons, it did nothing to alleviate my nerves now.

I was ten minutes early, she wasn't there yet. I stood there and shuffled my feet. My gaze drifted to Morrible's desk, mahogany as well, littered with papers and partially obscured by the monitor of a sleek, expensive computer. A vase of large pink flowers whose rather sickly sweet scent I could smell from where I was standing sat on the corner, and with a start, I saw Grommetik on the ground next to the desk. He certainly hadn't been there last time I'd been here. It (um, he?) was standing completely stationary and appeared to be turned off, but those unnerving red lights set its conical head that seemed to be an eerie mockery of eyes, though not blinking, were glowing steadily. I couldn't shake the sense that the thing was watching me.

Morrible emerged from the carved door behind the desk a moment later, fortunately, so my staring contest with the robot didn't last long.

"Oh, Miss Thropp," she said, looking astonished. Maybe she wasn't expecting me this early. "How did you get in?"

I felt my shoulders droop a little. _Shit. I should have knocked. _"I—uh, I'm sorry, Madame Morrible, I thought you'd be here. I just let myself in like last time, and I thought that you would be here, o-or a secretary…" There were a few other desks with computers in the spacious office that looked as though they were designed for secretaries, even though I hadn't seen any the first time I was here.

"I don't have one," her eyes narrowed. "I've yet to find one competent enough to help me do this job. But Miss Thropp, I insist you tell me...Exactly _how _did you get in here?" She sounded baffled and a bit suspicious.

"I…opened the door." I felt like a complete moron as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

"It was locked. Electronically. You would've needed a keycard."

"Oh…" Would that the ground would open up beneath me right now and swallow me whole.

"Did you tamper with it?" Her voice was sharp now.

"No, I—"

She blinked, as realizing something. And then a shrewd smile spread across her wide, pallid face, her eyes calculating. "Yes, you did. But I doubt you meant to."

"W-what…"

"Magic, if not controlled, tends to cause technological interference. And to break through _my _doors would take…quite a bit of said raw magic."

Was this a good thing or a bad thing? I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry, Madame. It wasn't intentional."

"Don't apologize, my dear. No harm done. That's what Grommetik here is for, anyhow, an extra measure of protection in case anyone were to steal into my office with…_ill _intent." The robot's eyes seemed to glow a bit brighter, as if it had heard her. The thing looked bloodthirsty, I swear. "At any rate, this is yet another indication that your powers are far greater than I'd anticipated." Her smile broadened, and it made her eyes seem to bulge out even more than usual. "Especially after what Doctor Nikidik tells me regarding the events of yesterday's introductory Life Sciences course."

"I didn't mean to do that," I blurted. And then mentally slapped myself. _Pull yourself together. NOW._

"Be that as it may," she said kindly, "I certainly don't protest any effort to preserve the life of one of my students. And I'm sure the Vinkan royal family would agree. However," she added, sitting in her chair and motioning for me to sit in the one across from her, "As I already explained to you, wielding such a force can be quite dangerous, and have a range of nasty side effects if you don't know how to control it. Tell me, Miss Thropp," she leaned forward on her elbows, "how exactly did you feel after what you did in Nikidik's class yesterday?"

"Dizzy," I admitted. "And tired. Kind of sick."

"Exactly," she said with a look of sympathy that was nearly patronizing. "Letting a large amount of magic out in one quick burst can lead to some serious consequences. Fatigue and illness, quite often accompanied by painful seizures known as 'sorcerers' paroxysms', and occasionally, strange and disturbing dreams and visions."

"Visions?"

She waved a hand. "The lunatic ravings of exhausted minds, no doubt. I've never experienced them myself, but I seriously doubt there is any truth or meaning to them. But be that as it may," she added gravely, "I repeat: unchecked magic, especially for one with such an unprecedented capacity for it such as yourself, is an unpredictable and highly destructive thing, and I do not wish to see anyone with such a bright future ahead of her causing harm to herself or others through carelessness." I winced at the word _carelessness_ but she didn't seem to notice. "That said, it is vital to your safety and wellbeing that you learn to keep your magic, as well as your emotions, for they are inexorably linked with your powers, in check. It should not be too difficult for you, it requires little more than deep breathing and a _clear mind, _and visualizing a sort of blockade, if you will, to stem the flow of your powers. With some practice, I'm perfectly certain that you won't find it at all challenging. And I'm sure that you will appreciate the benefits of such discipline as well, to keep you from ruining your more valuable electronics every single time you're feeling angry or distressed." I must've looked sheepish at this, because she laughed lightly. "Yes, I'm afraid I've gone through about three of these computers in the past two years," she said, tapping the monitor next to her, "merely because I happened to be having a bad day. Moving on, however. I would like you eyes, if you will, and count backwards from twenty…"

I complied, and obeyed as she had me do all sorts of "deep breathing" type exercises that made me feel admittedly ridiculous, while ordering me to completely drain myself of all thought and all emotion. I didn't know how well they were really working, and trying to _rid _myself of thoughts and emotions really was doing little more than dragging them back to the surface again. And just below the surface of my mind right now, underneath the anxiety over the lesson, I wasn't surprised to find lingering annoyance at the asinine behavior of a certain prince… However, I didn't blame her for making me try, at least, if I really did have the dangerous capabilities she thought I did. Maybe her head could blow up in a _poof _of dust too if I wasn't careful.

I snorted at the thought.

"_Focus,_ Miss Thropp."

"Sorry, Madame."

Five minutes later found me with my nose buried in an elementary spellbook, figuring out how to pronounce the words of the spells she'd set before me. They were simple spells, designed for moving and levitating small objects, and ones that I'd already half-memorized over the weekend. My task was to move a few pennies, paperclips, and various other objects across the desktop and to make them float. I'd done this sort of thing occasionally when I was little to amuse myself, but to do it while speaking a spell to control the _flow _of my magic and direct it to perform exactly what I needed it to was much easier than trying to do it by concentration alone. Morrible's eyes widened in astonishment a few times while I was doing all this—she explained that most beginners had trouble mustering the power to move anything at all when they first started out—but she looked otherwise pleased with my progress. A few times I lost concentration or got a bit too enthusiastic, and one of the objects would refuse to budge for a moment, or would go flying off in a random direction, or would drop like a stone if it had been floating, but all in all, I was satisfied with what I was accomplishing. As I spoke a spell that caused a chain of paperclips to float in a neat circle around my head, I felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and I realized that now that I was actually, intentionally _using _my powers, I didn't have to be so afraid anymore. No more was I going to let myself be commanded by the fear of some colossal, deadly, _evil_ power stored up somewhere inside of me—_I _would command that power_. _And I wouldn't rest until I knew how.

But Morrible was right—after an hour or so of this, I felt lightheaded and involuntarily slumped back into my chair. The penny I'd been levitating still hung in the air between us. I stared at it blankly for a few seconds, and then blinked. It fell to the desk with a clatter.

Morrible looked at the penny, then up at me. Her lip curled up and her eye twinkled. "Well, well, Miss Thropp. Today you've shown me something that I've seen precious little of in all my years as the head of this _distinguished _university."

"What's that, Madame?"

She reached out her hand to shake mine. "Competence."

_Glinda POV-_

I was stretched out on my bed exactly a week after classes began, watching an old favorite movie on my laptop and waiting for my toenail polish to dry, when it happened—the very first step of my very own, personalized _fairy tale_ happened, and from that point on it was all smooth sailing on fluffy clouds into a blissful dream of moonlight and shiny stars.

For the first time this year, something had gone _my _way.

It all started when I heard a frantic banging on the door. "Get it," I told Elphaba. I'd mess up my toes if I got up, surely she understood _that._

"No," she said dully. She was sitting at her desk in front of her own laptop, and by the looks of it she was working on that Ozian Civ essay that was due on Thursday. I hadn't started it yet, but I was an expert crammer, and Dillamond was just going to give me a C anyway, so I figured it didn't matter when I _started _it.

"Elphaba, answer the—"

"GLINDA!" came Shenshen's voice from the other side of the door. "Open _up_!"

I sighed and pushed myself up off the bed. It is _not _easy to walk around gracefully without letting your toes touch each other or the floor. _This had better be important._

"Let me _in_!" she shrieked and banged on the door again.

I pulled the door open and she burst into the room. Her cheeks were pink and she was out of breath.

"Shenshen, what the…did you _run_ here?" Her room was on the bottom floor. She nodded, a total mess of dark curls bouncing around her flushed face.

"L-look…" she gasped, and shoved her phone into my hands.

By now Elphaba had even looked up from her work at Shenshen, and was staring at her with just as much confusion as I was.

There was a two-minute video on the screen. "Watch it," she ordered.

I blinked. I had a feeling I knew what this was. "Oh my God, did you really…" Dare I even _hope_?

She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, a huge smile on her face. "Oh yes. WATCH it."

I pressed "play." I think my finger was shaking.

And on her (excellent quality) screen appeared my dream come true.

Outside, early evening. A girl standing out by a tree, one of the big fruit trees out behind Crage Hall that made the garden out there all shady and cozy. The camera zoomed in: it was clearly Sarima. Looking impatient, waiting for somebody. A few seconds went by. Then a boy, clearly _not _Fiyero, walking up to her. Sarima grabbing the boy by the shirt, and then…

Oh dear, sweet Lurline.

Two full minutes of _making out. _

And I mean _obscene _making out. Groping and all that, totally eating each other's faces, and that boy had her entire body squashed between himself and the tree. Totally gross.

I don't think I'd ever seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.

"How did you get this?" I whispered, in total awe.

"Well it wasn't easy," she said. "I practically had to follow her around for three _days _to figure out when she was actually finding the time to see him, because I couldn't just leave my webcam set up in the room, 'cause she'd know it was me if I'd caught anything. But once I figured it out, I actually hid out there and waited for them." She looked proud of herself. From her corner, Elphaba snorted.

I laughed. "The garden behind the _girls' _dorms_. _Of course. That is _so _typical…I think it makes this whole thing even better." I flung myself at Shenshen and hugged her tight. "You are totally, eternally my favorite person on the planet as of this moment," I squealed. "You're awesome."

"I know," she said, and did a little curtsy. "Now who should I send it to?"

"Everybody you know, obviously," I said, whipping out my own phone.

"How long do you think it'll take to get to Fiyero?" she asked.

"Not long. I'm sure of it," I said, beginning to thumb through my contacts.

And then I had a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself. "Wait a second."

"What?"

"Hang on."

_Bick!_ I still had Bick's number in my phone. _How lovely, my very own pushover, at my service._ I thought for a second, and then typed a message: **hey bick its glinda upland**

It took all of ten seconds before I got a response. _**Hi Galinda! How are you? **_

He texts with good grammar. How cute.

**I'm good can u do sumthin for me its rly important**

_**Sure, anything. **_

I paused to think once more before responding. I wanted Fiyero to see this thing ASAP, but I also didn't exactly want him to think it was me who had taken the video. What if I was only passing this message along for somebody else? Then nobody would have to know I had anything to do with it.

**If i send u a video can u make sure u get it 2 ur friends from the team? i dont know what its a video of cuz i didnt watch it yet but 1 of my friends says its super important that 1 of ur friends sees it…i think she said fiyero. pretty please?**

Shenshen giggled when she saw what I'd written. "Nice."

A few tense seconds, and then a response: _**Sure, of course.**_

I smiled. "Done."

Life is good.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

_**There's a strange exhilaration**_

_**In such total detestation…**_

A few weeks passed before I knew it. My classes were going quite well, I suppose—I managed to do reasonably well at anything that Morrible threw at me, much to her satisfaction, even though I really still hadn't progressed towards much more than moving increasingly heavy objects around. Dillamond's class was my second favorite, definitely. And Amy was right about him being a great teacher. He possessed a quality which is rare to many teachers, to actually love he was teaching, and the ability to make somebody _care _about what he had to say about it, and to appreciate that the things he was telling us were of momentous importance. We were currently studying the politics behind the feudal system in the Gillikin. But needless to say, not everybody in the class was able to appreciate the lectures. Amy was, and I was, but my roommate, to cite an example, was too busy "appreciating" the boy sitting next to her (and yes, he had continued to sit next to her) to notice anything else in the universe. My other classes were alright—standard college courses. Everybody in Nikidik's class, and in fact Nikidik himself, seemed to be more than a little frightened by me. I had to be careful not to make any sudden movements lest I give anyone a heart attack in that class, and thank god for Crope and Tibbett and Boq, who still didn't seem too fazed by me.

Nothing momentous happened within those weeks, but I had found that I'd settled into a sort of familiar, even comfortable schedule: cart Nessa around to and from her classes, ignore Glinda's antics, lock myself in my room to study and practice my sorcery until I couldn't see straight except for when I was dragged out and required to be sociable by mine and Nessa's newfound circle of _friends_. That word still sounded strange, but it seemed to be true nonetheless, that this peculiar group of people were now my friends, and it was a pleasing change for me, even if the majority of what occurred was merely me sitting in amused silence as I listened to them. Crope and Idina and Falyn and now even Leon were completely consumed by thoughts of the upcoming musical. Leon, by the way, had blown everybody away at his audition, which I'd of course been forced to attend, and as it turns out possessed quite a passionate (and as Amy said, _hot_) singing voice that seemed at hilarious odds with his slight form and nervous air, and had pleased Idina to no end ("I _knew _it, he's perfect!") and had landed him exactly the part he'd wanted. But stage presence or not, he still got red and shuffled his feet when any of us congratulated him, and looked mortified whenever Crope jokingly suggested that Leon and him get together to practice their duets _privately. _

Meanwhile, Olivia went on and on to us about her favorite TV shows (cheesy science fictions mostly), and Tibbett about his video games. Amy continued to mess with Leon, even though I began to suspect she might actually have feelings for him. And Boq gratefully would join us all when he could, that is, when his time wasn't being taken up by, as Crope put it, "the petty, sordid affairs of the world of the beautiful and the athletic." He didn't say much, he mostly just sat there and listened to the conversation with an awkward smile, his face showing relief at spending time with people he actually _liked_ as well as an underlying sense of uncertainty, as if he wasn't sure that he couldn't fully comprehend that this group would so readily accept him if he was also a member of the "League of All Evil."

If he ever noticed Nessa's constant, desperate staring, or the fact that she wore that expensive, sparkly purple eyeliner that she generally only saved for special occasions every single day, he never acknowledged it.

Nessa still made every effort to keep her rooming and caretaker situations a big secret from everybody. And she made me take her to the local Unionist chapel on Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, judging by the sorts of glances I was getting from the congregation, most of them thought that green skin must be the result of some sort of personal moral failing on my part. Not that I'd expected any different, but at least at home, the congregation had the propriety not to look down their noses at the governor's daughter, or during the sermon anyway.

On a Friday night about three weeks after the semester had started, Olivia and Mirabelle decided to trail along with me as I walked back to Crage Hall after dinner. They'd been doing this quite frequently, I think, to compensate for the fact that they both hadn't been able their disapproval of the fact that I was taking private sorcery lessons from the woman who they swore was a bigot. Now the subject of Animals had never once come up during my sorcery lessons, and Morrible was offering me far too great an opportunity and had too much confidence in my (admittedly still limited) talents for me to dislike her based upon what others said about her. All the same, I could sense their discomfort with it and I'd assured them that no matter what Morrible's opinions on Animals might be, it wasn't going to have any effect whatsoever on my own opinions of Animals. And since then, they seemed determined to prove to me in return that whether I was taking lessons from her was irrelevant to my friendship with them, because they spent as much time with me and Nessa as they possibly could. And for Olivia, it was an opportunity for her to furnish me with long, elaborate, and often extremely entertaining descriptions of all of her various "fandoms."

Today, for example, as we walked down the hallway towards my room, Olivia was fiddling with the zipper of her leather jacket as she described some paranormal-thriller-type show or other to us: she assured us it wasn't as great as her _favorite _show, the vampire show in whose honor she wore the famed jacket, but "it's totally cool anyhow and kinda the same thing—except it's about these two brothers who are demon hunters instead of a girl. Their acting's kinda lame, but the effects are real good and _freaky _if you watch it at night, with all the loud noises and stuff popping out at you and exorcisms and everything, and both of the guys are _so _totally_ fiiiine, _and they drive all around the country this sexy black sportscar, and_…_" While her sister talked, Mirabelle rolled her tiny eyes and absently nibbled a cheese puff from her spot atop Olivia's left shoulder.

I was not surprised by what happened next. I mean, I'd known it was only a matter of time after that message was sent out before the two of _them _actually got together, and made my position as _her _roommate doubly miserable. But I can't say that I wasn't annoyed by it. Not _annoyed_, actually—I'd go as far as to say thoroughly and utterly pissed off.

Even if, in a small way, it was the beginning of a course of events that ended up changing my life in ways I couldn't have possibly imagined.

What _happened _was that, when I unlocked and pushed open the door, I found Glinda Upland and Fiyero Tiggular, standing in the center in the room.

Making out.

Rather violently, might I add.

Ugh.

At first I don't think they noticed us, because they kept up it up shamelessly for a several seconds. Olivia's chatter cut off immediately. Her eyes grew round and her jaw dropped. I heard Mirabelle utter a small "eew." I cleared my throat in as obnoxious a manner as I could manage.

You'd think they'd both just been electrocuted, given the way they jumped apart at the sound. Glinda's reaction was immensely satisfying to watch—she disentangled herself from his arms in a fraction of a second, wheeled around, and shrieked, "Oh my _god,_ don't you ever _knock_?" Her lips were swollen and her cheeks were flooding with color, though whether from embarrassment or fury I couldn't tell.

Fiyero's reaction was quite different, and it made me think that he must be used to being barged in on. He just ran one hand through his hair, which was all tousled from having just had Glinda's fingers all tangled in it, and stuffed the other hand into his sweatshirt pocket. The corner of his mouth twitched, his demeanor amused and annoyingly cocky rather than at all embarrassed. I swear, the boy had no shame whatsoever.

Then he registered exactly _who _had barged in, and then he wasn't smiling anymore. He suddenly looked taken aback and a little exasperated.

Ha, I bet Glinda failed to tell him just who her roommate was.

And sure enough, he looked down at Glinda, a question in his eyes.

Glinda looked at me as if she wished me a slow and excruciatingly painful death. Clearly she had been trying to avoid this moment. "Fiyero, meet my roommate."  
"We've met," he muttered. I was glaring at him now, and he had the nerve to glare right back, eyebrows raised, in an irritated yet spectacularly condescending manner that made me want to hit him. Hard. Glinda pouted.

"Uh…okay then. We'll be going now," Mirabelle said cautiously, tugging on a strand of Olivia's hair. Olivia had been gawking at Fiyero. I knew that this moment was going to be something she'd be talking about for weeks to come. She looked a little reluctant to leave, but obeyed her sister and turned on her heel.

A little voice in my mind piped up just then. _CONTROL yourself. Breathe. Remember what Morrible's been saying. You don't want to explode any heads. _

I forced myself to take a few calming breaths before taking a few steps into the room. I crossed my arms. "If you two don't mind, get a room. A room other than _this _room." I dumped my bookbag on my desk chair and started unloading my books. I didn't really have any pressing assignments due, and as it was Friday I'd intended to give myself a little break for the evening, but maybe if they thought I was going to be studying they'd alter their apparent plans for a night _in_.

Glinda scoffed and then said to Fiyero, "You can stay if you want."

Again. "No, that's okay," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Glin." As he passed my desk on his way out, he tapped one of my sorcery books with a finger. "I think your roommate might try to blow me up if I stay, anyway." He smiled contemptuously at me. Which made me want to hit him. Again.

When he was gone, Glinda slammed the door shut behind him, and then wheeled around to face me.

"You made him leave." Her tone was murderous.

"Uh-huh."

"_Why_ do you have to be such a bitch?"

I shrugged and started flipping through a book. I wasn't usually one for being petty, but I made sure that it was a sorcery book, just to piss her off. "Back at you."

And she stomped off into the bathroom.

**Pardon the television reference. I just spent the better part of a 24-hour sleepover with the real "Olivia" swooning over Dean and Sam (mostly Dean, for my part). And from here on out I've set it up, I believe, so that I can pick up the pace of the plot. Which is good, because I've already written a lot of act two, even if it needs some major work. Anyway, thank you all so much for your overwhelming support of this story. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Unlimited**

**Chapter 15**

**Bonjour and Happy September, dear readers! Kudos to all the scifi nerds who enjoyed the Supernatural reference in the last chapter. Because of COURSE the Winchesters are really secretly Ozian, as is Buffy. Speaking of that…and I'm shamelessly self-advertising here...I rather recently wrote a Supernatural oneshot. *cough-cough-go-read-it-cough-cough* Ahem, excuse me. You don't have to if you don't want. But I WANT you to! *Gives you pathetic puppy eyes* :D **

_**-You're perfect.**_

_**-You're perfect.**_

_**-So we're perfect together…**_

_Glinda POV:_

It didn't take long at all to get Fiyero exactly where I wanted him after that. That video, that beautiful, glorious video, made everything blow up in Sarima's face really damn quick. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see what had actually happened, but according to, well, everybody, it was a very big, very public breakup, because apparently Fiyero decided to end things on his own terms. Which meant total humiliation for Sarima, of course. But you know what? I don't blame him. Serves her right. Whore.

After that, all it took on my part was some heavy duty flirting with him during Dillamond's class. And some hair tossing. And a lacy push-up bra, coupled with a lot of bending over to pick up pencils I'd "dropped." Need I say, it didn't take long at all. He was mine within the week.

And it was more perfect than I could have imagined. Because not only had I finally, _finally _gotten exactly what I wanted, but I was not at all disappointed by what I actually got. I swear, half the girls in the school were practically green-in-the-face jealous when they saw me with him (Okay, maybe green-in-the-face isn't quite the right expression….ugh), Anyway, as awesome as that was, it was _him_, everything about him, that made this all truly perfect. Because he was. Oh, he was. Obviously, he was drop dead gorgeous, with a body that made me go all wobbly in the knees just thinking about it. And, well, the bragging rights to say I was dating, well, _royalty. _But one of the best things about him by far was that he seemed to know everything there was to know about "boyfriend stuff." He knew exactly how to treat a girl right, and he didn't need to be told twice. It was totally cute, in an old-timey chivalrous sort of way. He got me roses—_roses!—_on the first date, carried my books and opened doors for me, and told me at least once a day how beautiful he thought I was. It was so damn adorable.

And then there was…the other stuff. The fun stuff. The really, _really _fun stuff. Stuff that he was really good at, and I must say, so was I. Except most of the time, we had to go to his dorm, because _she _was always hanging around in my dorm. I swear to Lurline, she never did anything but study. Ever. Except maybe pluck away at that stupid guitar sometimes. We learned our lesson one night about three weeks after we'd started dating. I _thought _she'd gone out—okay, sometimes she did occasionally go out with the circle of dorks that seemed to have adopted her and her sister—and I think she said something about going to take her sister to the movies, but apparently she must have changed her mind, because 45 minutes after she'd left and after we'd been at it (heeheehee) for awhile, she barged back into the dorm. I remember sort of yelping and accidentally tumbling off the bed with a blanket all tangled up around me (yeah, not exactly the most dignified response, but _you _try being barged in on in the middle of…that.)

She just stood there, with her hand on her hip, glaring from me, on the floor with…well….no clothes on unless you're counting the blanket-cocoon, to Fiyero, who was sort of pulling his boxers up and trying to where his pants went at the same time.

But you know what she did?

She _laughed. _She actually _laughed _at us.

How RUDE.

And I made sure she knew it, too. I mean, I wasn't going to stand for this kind of treatment. I wrapped the blanket around myself as tightly as I could, then rounded on her. "The door was _locked. _God, what is your _problem_?" I shrieked. I'd wanted it to sound more, well, dignified than it did, but you try telling someone off when you're naked.

Well, at least she stopped laughing. "This is my room too, you know," she said coldly.

"I told you to knock," I snapped. I felt my cheeks burning.

Fiyero was perched on the edge of my bed, his pants back on, and unbelievably, he looked like he was trying not to laugh. Yet another thing that was totally amazing about him—he could stay totally cool even in completely shitty situations. "Eh, don't sweat it, Glin," he said, grinning. "Maybe she gets off on it or something."

And that had me giggling a little, too.

But Elpaba obviously didn't find it nearly so funny as we did. Because immediately the lights started flickering. And the screen of my laptop, which was still sitting open because I'd checked my email a few minutes before, started flickering and turning odd colors. "Leave," she pretty much snarled at him.

And that's when I got right up in her face. Because if I hadn't been pissed enough before, I sure was now. "He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to."

The lights flickered once more, and that's about when we started yelling at each other. I don't remember exactly what each of us said, but we were screaming over one another, and but for her it was something along the lines of "…WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT...blah blah blah….PERSONAL SPACE…blah blah blah…ABSOLUTELY REPULSIVE…yada yada yada…MY ROOM AS MUCH AS IT IS YOURS…blah blah blah blah blah…UTTER INDECENCY AND DISREGARD FOR…blah blah blah...MORONS." And mine was mostly "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU…I HAVE EVERY RIGHT…yada yada yada…CONSENTING ADULTS…blah blah blah…DID NOBODY TEACH YOU TO KNOCK…blah blah blah…YOU MUST BE A TOTAL PERV OR SOMETHING…yada yada…YOU BITCH." Yup. That was the gist of it.

Oh, and to make matters even worse, one of the fluorescent lights blew out and shattered with a huge BOOM just then and sprinkled us with tiny bits of broken glass, which of course sent the Resident Assistant running to our door. (Damn Elphaba and her weird ability to screw up anything electric if she gets the teeniest bit angry…) We were still going at it with each other, and as soon as the RA appeared at the door to ask what the hell had made such an awful noise and was everyone okay, we both rounded on the poor girl and screamed "WHAT!" at the exact same time, and she just about jumped out of her skin. Under any other circumstances it might've been kind of funny, but I was naked at the time and screaming my lungs out at the bitch of the century, so yeah, not so funny. She mumbled something about calling for maintenance to come fix it tomorrow and asking us to be a little quieter, and then she practically ran back down to her room. Fiyero, at least, still saw humor in the situation, and was cracking up the whole time.

Which might've made me feel a little better, if it wasn't for the fact that, at that moment, my phone, which was lying on my desk, started to go haywire. The screen started flickering on and off, and it was vibrating like crazy and making a bunch of scary BEEPing noises…and then smoke started rising from the keypad…Three seconds later, it gave one last pathetic crackling noise, and then was still.

My eye twitched. She _broke _my _phone._

That was it. She was gonna PAY.

I don't really remember much of what happened afterward, except that it involved me sobbing and screaming at her some more, and Elphaba muttering that it was an accident, and that she really was sorry, and that she would get me a new one. At this point, I think Fiyero knew better than to stick around much longer. He yanked his shirt back on (I think it was backwards), kissed me on the cheek, and left. Very quickly. Smart boy.

We didn't talk for the rest of the evening after that. She did _look _apologetic, and also kinda freaked out for some reason, like she was scared by what she'd just done or something. Hell, she probably thought I was gonna tell on her or something. And actually, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, telling her precious Morrible that she used her incredible "talents" to fry my cell phone because she was mad at me. At any rate, I didn't buy for a second that she was really sorry.

I went to hang out in Shenshen's room later that night. And I must say it made me feel a lot better seeing Sarima's reaction (Sarima and Shenshen are roomies, like I said) when I walked through the door. She gasped, and then gave me the ugliest, dirtiest look she could come up with, and stomped, completely melodramatic, out of the room. She was in her pajamas. And her hair was a total mess; obviously she hadn't seen a flatiron in awhile. And to be honest, I think she'd let herself go a little bit since she'd broken up with Fiyero. She had a bit of acne now, and she was bigger in the tummy and hips. Ha.

Anyway, I told Shenshen what happened, and by the end she was staring at me with her mouth hanging open. "So…" she started. "What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know yet. I mean, I don't think Morrible is gonna let me switch roommates. She still hates me."

"No," she lowered her voice, "I mean, what are you going to _do_?"

"I don't know yet. Which is one of the reasons I'm here. You're a lot sneakier than Pfannee, and Milla would probably 'disapprove.'" I made air quotes around the word and rolled my eyes. "What do you think I should do?"

"Hm. Well, it's gotta be something really public. She's humiliated you, so humiliate her right back."

"Yeah, totally. Let's see. She fried my phone. Now I _could_ fry hers, but…"

"Uh, no. I mean, she's got money, obviously, if she's Governor Thropp's daughter. She'll just get a new one. And besides, wouldn't that be a little…I don't know…"

"Petty?"

Shenshen nodded.

"Yeah," I said. "You're right. I could never, ever bring myself to be _petty_, now could I?" I smiled innocently. She laughed. "But seriously, though," I continued. "What could I do that would give her a taste of her own medicine?"

We mulled it over for a minute. And then we both had it. "Magic!" we shouted at the same time, then giggled.

"Oh my god, that'd be _perfect_!" Shenshen whispered. "You know, those spells you were telling me about?"

I thought for a second, then nodded. "Yeah, totally. I could figure something out." Even though, like I've said before, I don't know much about my powers except for that coconut crème pie incident, I'd flipped through Elphaba's spellbooks a few times when she wasn't around, and I'd found a couple of one or two-word-long spells that I could actually do…more or less. Even more proof that I deserved that damn seminar every bit as much as _she _did. I sat down, reached into my pocket, and dumped its contents onto the floor: my (tragically) broken phone and a penny.

"Go on, give it a try," Shenshen urged. "I haven't actually gotten to see you try this stuff yet."

Hmm….

I stared at the phone, and concentrated really, really, REALLY hard until my head felt like it was ready to explode. I felt a sort of _pop-pop-pop_ing behind my ears, which meant that I was doing it right…I think. Then I whispered the word I remembered from the book, and pointed at the phone.

The rush of energy I felt left me woozy and out of breath, and I kind of fell backwards onto the rug.

"Glin?" Shenshen bent over me. I was still sort of seeing stars, so I didn't answer her at first. "Oh my god, Glin?" she shook my shoulder, looking totally freaked.

"Yeah," I gasped and reached for her hand. "Yeah, I'm okay." She helped me sit up.

"Did it work?" She looked at the phone, all confused.

"I think so," I managed. "Watch." I picked up the penny and dropped it on top of the phone. Instead of bouncing off and onto the floor, like it should have, it stuck to the surface of the phone like it was a magnet on a fridge or something.

"Whoa," she said.

"Pick it up," I said. "Try to take the penny off."

She blinked. "Is it safe?"

"Of course it is," I told her, though I wasn't 100% sure. I was _almost _positive that, even though it was kind of confusing, the textbook had said that the spell would make whatever thing (or things) that touched the charmed object first stick to it permanently, and then the spell would "become dormant," which I think meant "safe to pick up."But there was only one way to find out.

Shenshen nodded and hesitantly picked up the phone. She tried to slide the penny off with her thumb, but it wouldn't budge. It was stuck on like it had been welded there.

She grinned. "Nice."

"I know, right?"

"Ha, I know what we should do. Let's stick her hand to her face."

"We may get expelled for that," I said. And she'd rip off all the skin on her face when she finally did manage to get her hand off. Gross. I don't hate anyone _that _much.

"Okay, maybe not her hand. So what then?" Shenshen looked delighted at all the possibilities.

"Hm…" I said. "So maybe not her skin, but what about…Oh, what about her hair?" That wouldn't hurt…much. Right? Mwahaha.

"You mean like…putting the spell on a…"

"On a hat," I finished for her. "Exactly."

"Does she wear hats?"

"Well no, not that I've seen, but…" I gasped as a sudden thought came to me. "But I know just the thing."

"What?"

"Well, my grandmother just sent me one of those cheezy little 'care packages' she always sends me once a month. And because Hallows' Eve is coming up, and she can't seem to get it through that little old blue-haired head of hers that I'm too old to go around door to door and beg people for candy, she sent me this cheap, god-awful little witch's hat."

Shenshen's eyes lit up. "Perfect!"

"I know. How's that for giving the witch-bitch a _taste of her own medicine_?"

"How are you going to get her to put it on, though?"

I smiled. "Leave that to me."


	16. Chapter 16

**Unlimited**

**Chapter 16**

**Here you go, deeplyshallow. I have another chapter for you already completed as well. Turns out my inspiration for this story wasn't so dead as I thought—I've been writing all day. *Goes off to write more Supernatural stories until inspiration strikes again***

By all counts, the semester was going well. I wasn't surprised, however, to find that upper level classes meant a whole bunch complicated, in-depth essays to write. The good part was that we didn't have a ton of homework to do in between each of the papers. The bad part was the fact that every single student, myself included, went into panic mode the week the paper was due, trying to complete an assignment that was worth 25% of the final grade. Well, almost every single student. Based on what I'd seen when we'd both had assignments to do for Dillamond's class, Glinda wasn't too worried about her essays. Or her schoolwork in general, really. She seemed too wrapped up in her friends, and in Fiyero, to pay much attention.

And based on the amount of time the two of _them_ spenttogether, I wondered how either of them managed to get any work done at all. And what was irritating about it all was that, even though Fiyero had struck me from the start as the love-'em-and-leave-'em sort, Glinda was obviously his type of girl. Part of me was inclined to think that it was just the obnoxious amount of sex they were having….which Glinda had at least learned, since I'd barged in on them, wasn't going to happen in _our_ room anymore.

Before I knew it, September and October had come and gone. And with the exception of Idina and the other cast members of the fall musical whose performance dates were rapidly approaching, all the entire campus could talk about at the beginning of November was an annual, allegedly "huge and insanely fun," party at the Ozdust, called the Fall Bash or something like that, that always happened the first Saturday of November. Now, I didn't spend too much time griping about Glinda to my friends, but when Boq confessed that he was trying to work up the nerve to ask Glinda to the dance. He reasoned that Fiyero never stayed with any one person very long, and that all the time Fiyero was spending with Glinda didn't mean that they were necessarily dating, and that she might be free by the time of the dance. I tried as kindly as I could to convince him not to. Needless to say, Nessa vehemently backed me up on this. But Boq wouldn't be dissuaded. The problem, I supposed, was that Boq hadn't actually gotten the chance to see her for what she was. All he knew was that he had a crush on the pretty girl who liked to come watch the baseball players practice, who'd doubtless put on a sweet and likeable face in order to get their attention, and who was too good for Fiyero. And, he said, if he'd dated Milla, one of her best friends—who'd been interesting, smart and pretty if not always kind—then surely he stood a chance with Glinda, who seemed to be nicer than Milla anyway. Whether this was an idiotic notion or not, I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. But either way, he was bound to get turned down by her before he had to find out.

What I wasn't counting on, though, was actually being there when she did turn him down. But it wasn't quite as harsh as I'd anticipated. Apparently, whether or not she liked him, Boq _was_ an athlete, which meant she at least made an attempt to pretend to be gentle in her turndown.

Boq's first mistake, though? Showing up at the door of our dorm to ask her. Even if he did have a chance with her, acting like a stalker wasn't really the best way to win her affections.

Glinda's eyebrows rose when she opened our door a week before the dance to find Boq standing awkwardly in our hallway with a dozen roses in his hand. Despite my immediate dread at seeing him standing there, I had to resist an urge to laugh. _Oh, Boq. Boq, Boq, Boq_.

"Can I…help you?" Glinda asked, bewildered.

"Uh…" Boq stuttered. He held up the roses. "H…hi."

"Um, hi. What are you…"

"These are for you," he blurted, and thrust them at her.

"Erm, thank you?"

"Yeah…no problem." He stood there for a few seconds, silently shuffling his feet.

"Is there…anything else?" Glinda pressed, staring down at the roses.

"Uh, no…. Wait, er, yes…"

"What—"

"Willyougotothedancewithme?" All the words came out in one incoherent rush. I sighed. _Just walk away, Boq. Right now. You're better off…_

"Wait, _what_?"

Boq took a deep breath. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?"

She blinked. "Oh."

Boq looked hopeful. It was pathetic and adorable at the same time. I was reminded of an excited puppy. Really, if it'd been anyone but Glinda, they'd probably said yes to that face. It was too pitiable. Too endearing. And he was trying _so_ hard…

But of course, this _was _Glinda. "Well…um, that's very…kind of you," she began, and the strain in her voice indicated that it was almost painful for her to be civil to him right now. "But you do know I'm going out with Fiyero, right?"

Boq's face fell. "Yeah, okay. I just wasn't sure if…uh…I'm sorry. Uh, catch you later, then…" He turned to slink off.

Glinda stared down at the flowers. It was an expensive bouquet and just the sort of thing he'd been right to assume that Glinda would love, all pink and orange roses with white ribbon and baby's breath strewn throughout, and one that I knew Boq had probably struggled to afford. An amused smile quirked at her lips.

"Wait," I could hear barely contained laughter in her voice.

He wheeled around. He looked excited. "Yeah?"

"Uh…well, I'm going with Fiyero, but…" she turned around. "Hey, Elphaba."

"Yeah…?" I began. _Oh God, don't bring me into this. _Somehow I didn't think Boq would be all that happy if Glinda suggested that he go with me. It would definitely be Glinda's idea of a good joke, though, if she were so inclined to torture him for this. Make sure Boq got teased through association with me.

But if that's what she _was_ thinking, she seemed to reconsider when she looked down at the bouquet once more, her eyes calculating. "Elphaba…what's your sister doing the night of the dance?"

"Uh…nothing, I guess." And Nessa hadn't failed to remind me of that fact many times over, how miserable she was not having a date to the dance, and how lame it would be to show up without a date, or, Lurline forbid, dateless and with _me_.

"Does she have a date?"

"No…"

"Does she want to go?"

"Yes," I answered carefully. Now I knew where she was going with this. And I wasn't sure I liked it. Nessa would be happy, and I wanted that. I definitely did want that. But I didn't want Boq taking her if he was only doing it because Glinda asked him to…

Glinda turned back to him. "You know what you could do, Bick? For me?"

"What?"

"Take her sister Nerissa—"

"Nessa," Boq and I corrected together.

"Right, Nessa. Why don't you take Nessa to the dance. She never gets to go anywhere, does she, Elphaba?" She turned back to me. I just looked at her. "You two are friends anyway, right? It'd make her really, really happy, wouldn't it?"

The look on Boq's face indicated that it was the last thing that he wanted to do, and he looked at me with a silent plea for help. I wanted to give him an _it's-really-okay-if-you-don't-want-to_ look, but…at the same time, _everybody_ aside from our little circle of friends had pretty much been solidly ignoring Nessa ever since she'd come to Shiz, aside from the usual rude stares that a handicapped person always got from the rest of the world. To her it was made even worse when it was her green sister who was toting her around. Sure, Nessa never let me forget it, but didn't she have a right to whine? She was miserable here. And _I _wasn't. That was a first. And if Nessa could have one night of fun, with the one guy she wanted most? Even if it wasn't all that fair to Boq, I couldn't find it in me to interfere with this.

"It would be so sweet of you, Bick," Glinda told him. "It'd make me really happy to see her so happy."

And that's what did it. Boq sighed. "Yeah. Okay. I'll do that."

She gave him a dazzling, plastic smile. "Great. I guess I'll see you there then."

Boq smiled back, looking hopeful again. "Okay."

I didn't know what Glinda had been up to, aside from maybe making sure that Boq was out of her hair, but when I came to pick up an ecstatic Nessa the next day to take her to class before heading off to Dillamond's class, I decided that I didn't care anymore. As she babbled on and on about Boq on the way to the class, I couldn't help smiling.

"And he said…and he said that your roommate mentioned I didn't have a date, and that he really, really wanted to go with me! Can you believe it?" She beamed up at me. "Elphaba, I'm so excited."

"I know."

"You're gonna come though, right?" she said uncertainly.

"You sure you want me there?" I said. This definitely, _definitely_ did not sound like my kind of thing. "I mean, Boq's really nice. I'm sure that if anything happens, if you get sick or something, that he'll help you out. He has my number." As much as it did make me nervous for her to be going off to a sure-to-be-wild party without me, I didn't want to ruin her night by showing up and humiliating her just by being there. I trusted Boq. And a quiet Saturday evening in sounded nice.

"Yeah, but…" Her were eyes pleading. "Morrible already talked to me about it. She said that if I wanted to go, she didn't want me going without Hallia, because Dad wouldn't like it. And Boq knows you, so you won't…" she trailed off, but I got the message. _So you won't embarrass me. _

Damn it. It wasn't like I could say no now. At least I wouldn't have to spend the entire night worrying about her. I'd take a book and camp out at a table. Get a cocktail or something. That didn't sound too bad.

"Okay, Nessa. I'll come if you want me to."

She reached up and squeezed my arm. "Thank you thank you thank you!" She was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. "Fae, this is gonna be the best night of my life!"

"Good." I squeezed her shoulder, and ignored the guilty squirm my stomach gave at the knowledge that it wouldn't exactly be the best night of _Boq_'s life.

"You know what?" she said after a moment. "We've gotta repay Glinda somehow for thinking of me."

I sighed. Obviously it hadn't occurred to Nessa that it'd all been a setup. "Okay…what'd you have in mind?"

"I don't know…" she trailed off. "Wait. Didn't you say she wanted to get into your magic seminar but couldn't?"

I shrugged. "That's what Morrible told me. She keeps stealing my magic books and looking over them when she thinks I'm not looking."

"Well…" she said. "Well then, why don't you talk to Morrible? See if you could get her into the seminar?"

I felt like she'd punched me in the stomach. No way. No _way_. "But I thought you didn't approve of magic," I said quickly.

Nessa hesitated. "Well, I haven't disowned _you_ yet, now have I?" she asked primly.

"Nessa," I explained, as patiently as I could. "Look, if she had the talent it took to do the stuff Morrible's teaching me to do, don't you think Morrible would've accepted her already? And I've never actually seen her manage anything." Well, okay. That wasn't true. She slid one of her necklaces a few inches across her desktop once, but she was purple in the face and looked about ready to pass out by the time she'd finished it.

"Well there's only one way for her to improve at it, right? And besides, it's what she wants, Fae. So it's what I want too."

"_You_ want to be in the seminar?" I smirked. "Well honestly, Nessa, better you than her…"

"No, not _me,_" she flushed. "I meant her. I want her to get in because it'll make her happy."

"But Nessa…" _But Nessa, I hate her. But Nessa, she's a spiteful, vindictive bitch who probably only set you up with Boq so she could have Fiyero all to herself…_

Wow. I sounded whiny even in my head. And motives aside, Glinda really _had_ done something nice for Nessa.

But _still_.

"Elphaba," she said resolutely. "If you don't help me with this, I'm going to tell Dad."

Anger immediately flared in my chest. That was…low. Really, really low.

Because whether Dad approved of magic or not, if it was a matter of what Nessa wanted versus what I wanted, he was going to side with Nessa, without a doubt. And then I'd have no choice in the matter.

She looked up at me, and the determination on her face faltered. I must've looked really angry, because her resolve melted into guilt. "Look, Fae, I'm sorry, but…I really want…"

"Fine," I said in a hollow voice. "I'll try." But then something occurred to me, and suddenly, there was hope again. "But Nessa, how do you really expect me to convince Morrible to—"

"Quit the seminar."

"What?" I said blankly, not sure if I'd heard her right.

"I _said_, if she doesn't let Glinda in, threaten to quit the seminar. Nothing's forcing you to stay. And trust me, I live near Morrible. I hear her going on and on all the time about what a brilliant student you are, and how much potential you have. She wouldn't risk losing you."

Yup, there was the anger again, simmering just below the surface. If Nessa wasn't careful, her cell phone would get burnt to a crisp, too.

But I knew she'd won.

"Fine," I muttered.

The chatter that usually filled the classroom before Dillamond's lesson began was about twice as loud today, and most of the snatches of conversation I overheard had something to do with the Fall Bash. Apparently, this dance was the highlight of everyone's semester. I was still dejected at the prospect of having to take Sorcery with my roommate, but the all the excitement over the dance was palpable, and I have to say it made me feel a little better. Maybe going to the dance, even if I was just observing, could be fun after all. I didn't think any of my friends were planning on going, except Idina and Falyn who both had dates (Idina's boyfriend actually happened to be Falyn's older brother Taye, who was in Shiz's grad program). Leon was trying to muster the nerve to ask Amy, but I didn't know if he'd done it yet. But maybe Crope and Tibbett would tag along if I asked them. Crope was all for it, being the theatrical attention-hog that he was, but Tibbett was anxious about facing potential hostility from the crowd if he and Crope showed up as boyfriend-and-boyfriend. But he'd come around. Crope would make sure of it.

The only thing I was afraid of? They both loved to dance.

And chances were, at least once over the course of the evening, they'd make me join in.

And as Nessa so aptly said, I couldn't dance my way out of a wet paper bag.

Oh, well. At least I'd be entertaining to watch.

When Dillamond entered the room, the noise level barely died down, and he had to shout to get everyone's attention.

"Alright, settle down, settle down, everyone," he shouted over the din, tapping a hoof against the ground. "I understand that you are all positively quivering with anticipation over a certain event that will commence this Saturday evening, but I expect you all not to allow this to interfere with your studies. For the next hour I'm afraid I'll be demanding all your attention, and _please_, don't forget that you have a paper due at the end of this week. I expect nothing less than the best from each and every one of you, and I'm sorry to say that the majority of the papers I've collected in the past on this particular week over the years have been, to be frank, pathetic." A few people laughed at that. "I do hope you will all to surprise me this year. Believe me, your GPA's will thank you for it. You have plenty of time to think about your gowns and tuxedos and such when you've finished. Now," he said with another stamp of his hoof. "Place your phones in the basket when it comes around, you know the drill. Let's begin."

And he sprang into a lecture about the many tense treaties, alliances, and negotiations made between the Vinkus and Gillikin. It was easy to tell who hadn't picked a topic yet, and was frantically scribbling notes in hopes that the lecture would somehow give them one. It was just as easy to tell who just didn't care, and who was still fantasizing about the dance. Glinda fit into that category. I took notes, but I'd already gotten about halfway through my paper and I was pretty sure this lecture was going to have nothing to do with my topic. Pretty interesting subject matter, though.

About halfway through the lecture, Dillamond was going to put a map up on the overhead projector, and Amy hopped up from her seat to help him with it. The heavy, dated slideshow machine he used always made me grin—even though there was technology available to Animals to allow them to use computers, like oversized touchpads and keyboards or mice with modified shapes, Dillamond steadfastly refused to use them. His projector had a foot pedal he could use to change the slides, and he could grip the slides themselves in the cloven part of his hooves. Apparently, that was good enough for him. All Amy needed to do was push the thing into place and pull down the projector screen.

But when she did pull down the projector screen, she gasped.

And when the rest of the class realized just what it was that had made her gasp, so did everyone else.

A sickening jolt when through me as I read the words that were scrawled onto the overhead projector screen, written in what I prayed was red spray paint and not blood, _not_ blood—

_Animals should be seen and not heard._

Nobody breathed. Nobody moved a muscle. In the stunned silence that followed, the only thing any of us could do was stare at the message—the huge, messy letters written in bubbly cursive that was almost—disturbingly—cheerful.

It was Dillamond who first broke the silence. He opened his mouth, his jaw working for a moment, but no sound came out. Then he cleared his throat, and said in a weak, strained voice, "Class dismissed."

Everyone noiselessly gathered up their things and fled the classroom. Even Glinda and Fiyero looked shaken. I heard Amy sniffling as she stuffed her books in her bag and practically ran out of the room. I wanted to follow, but I felt frozen in place, still staring at the message. I felt nauseous. Blood. That definitely looked like blood.

But what kind of blood?

No, this was wrong. Everything about this felt completely, absolutely _wrong. _An old, dusty, terribly distinguished classroom, in a place that was slowly stating feel like home to me, had become the scene of a hate crime. _And a violent one, maybe_, my brain added, my eyes unable to tear themselves away from that terrible red color.

Dillamond was frozen in the same spot, staring at the projector screen. His back was to me, but he hadn't moved an inch.

I didn't know if it'd be terribly insensitive to go down to him and ask him if he was alright, and it certainly felt like one of those situations in which there really wasn't anything _to _say, but at the same time, it did feel wrong just to leave him alone like this.

I stood up and walked down to the front of the room on legs that felt mildly like jelly. "Dr. Dillamond?" I said uncertainly. He didn't move. "Dr. Dillamond?" I repeated.

He started and turned around. "Oh…oh, erm, Miss Elphaba," he stammered. "D-didn't realize you were still here." It was difficult to tell on a Goat, but he looked just about ready to cry.

_Now _I felt awkward. "Um, I just…I just wanted to see if you were…." _If you were what? _my head asked me derisively. _If you were "okay"? _Because no, obviously he sure as hell wasn't okay.

"I…" he began. "I'll be fine, Miss Elphaba. Thank you for your concern." He attempted a smile, but it only made him look ill, or as ill as a Goat can look, and then turned back to the message.

I looked at it, too. We were both quiet for a moment.

"Are you sure you'll be fine?" I asked when I couldn't take it any longer.

He hesitated a moment. "Yes, thank you, Miss Elphaba," he said absently. I stood there for a second longer, but he looked completely lost in his own mind, and I didn't really know what else to do but turn and go. As I started to walk away, though, his voice stopped me cold.

"I've heard…rumors." His voice was distant, and I had no clue whether he was talking to me or not.

"Rumors?"

"Yes…" he said, staring at the message with a furrowed brow. "Rumors. Whispers abroad. Things like this, happening all over Oz. I just never thought…and it was terribly vain and naïve of me, I realize…that they could happen to me, what with my career, and as fine a learning institution as this…" His tone made me feel like I was intruding on a private conversation. One that he was apparently having with himself.

But God, the things he was saying…

"All over Oz?" I repeated. "What do you mean, all over Oz?" Alright, the lack of accommodations, limited career options, and occasional bigotry that Animals faced was terrible, but I could understand why it existed, with so few Animals in Oz. But…hate crimes? "Dr. Dillamond, if this—" I gestured vaguely at the board—"is going on all over the place, surely the Wizard's gotten word of it by now? He wouldn't tolerate it. It goes against the unification laws."

Hate crimes were not unheard of in Oz, as all four districts of Oz had been squabbling with one another on and off since the beginning of recorded history until the Wizard had shown up, and then, rather miraculously, an unprecedented time of peace settled over the country. Unification was the one thing the Wizard emphasized most, and had made a series of laws and enforced compromises between fighting factions to keep it in place. Even though diplomatic relationships could be strained at times, it was a bad move politically to indicate bias towards one region or race over another, and hate crimes were a severe federal offense. It was a good move on the Wizard's part to keep that the first priority, because who wanted to risk their nation dissolving into four enemy states? But by those very principles, how could this sort of thing be happening? And how could he not know about it?

"I wish I knew, Miss Elphaba," he said. "I wish I knew."

"What sorts of things are happening?"

"Miss Elphaba, I don't feel that this is…appropriate, not in front of student—"

"Neither is this." I pointed at the message. "What things?"

Dillamond glanced around the room, as if afraid somebody would overhear him, and then explained, in an undertone: "Dreadful things. Just dreadful. It's not obvious, very subtle, nothing overt. A disappearance, here and there, an unexplained death or two. Animals being laid off their jobs for no reason, or even worse, arrested and carried off for offenses that are never made clear, and not seen again…." His voice sounded haunted. "I've had a few…acquaintances…an Ox, a fellow professor and a good friend of mine, for instance, who've fallen victim to this. Friends of mine, who have stopped responding to my calls or correspondence…"

I blinked. His words were chilling, but what chilled me even more? I saw how it all could be possible. There wasn't a single Animal I'd met since I started school except for Mirabelle. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the student body, maybe the majority of the _country_, went for days or even weeks without seeing, talking to, or giving a second thought to a single Animal. If something had been going on under the country's nose… I looked back at the message, my stomach turning. If something like this was happening, and nobody was realizing it…

"How long has this been going on for?" Without realizing it, I was whispering.

He shrugged. "If you look at the newspapers now and then…or the obituaries…I'm beginning to believe there's a pattern to it all. It's subtle, a terrible change happening at the imperceptible rate of a slow trickle rather than with the force a mighty flood, but all the more terrifying because _nobody's noticed. _Not a soul." He shook his head. "Have you ever wondered, Miss Elphaba, about the slow decline in the Animal population in Oz over the past twenty-five years?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to think about it. "Where do you think they went, sir? Are they…did they—"

"My theory?" he glanced around again, as if he was a guilty conspirator, and then leaned towards me, and said, "Do you know what happens to an Animal when he or she is treated not like an Animal, but like a mere animal?"

I shook my head slowly.

"A sort of…insanity sets in." He shuddered. "One that strips us of all sentient thought. Essentially, once cut off from the civilized world, an Animal becomes a true _animal._"

Oh God.

No wonder Dr. Dillamond looked so scared. The prospect of a brilliant mind like his, completely undone. I was struck with a sudden mental image of Dillamond on all fours behind some fence in a muddy pen, dirty, vacant-eyed and chewing on hey. It could've been funny. But it wasn't. Not in the least.

"Somebody out there wants to silence us." I realized that Dillamond was still shaking, but upon closer inspection, it proved to be anger rather than fear. "This must be _stopped_," Dillamond growled.

I nodded. It was horrifying, that the entire country had been able to so easily turn a blind eye to something like that, living within the contained bubbles of our comfortable lives while _this_—_Animals should be seen and not heard_—was going on.

And how could the Wizard not know it?

"Sir," I said. "I don't know if you know this, but I'm a sorcery student with Madame Morrible…"

"I've heard," he said.

"Well… she seems to think that the Wizard might to offer me a job after I graduate. An assistantship. If he doesn't figure out what's going on before then and intervene, I promise I'll let him know." I paused, not sure how much I was going to be able to promise him. "I'll do everything I can to help him fix this," I said. _That_ I could promise, even if I didn't know how much stock the Wizard might put into the words of some Munchkin girl who was barely out of school.

There was a slight pause. Then Dillamond nodded and smiled sadly. "Thank you," he said. The thanks sounded genuine, but something told me he wasn't convinced that I could make any difference in the world.

Maybe it was already too late.


	17. Chapter 17

Unlimited

Chapter 17

"She doesn't mean that," Mirabelle was whispering mutinously from her perch in Olivia's hand. "She doesn't mean a word of it. She doesn't even care." Olivia nodded slightly, her face ashen.

It was early evening. The entire campus was packed into the Emerald Auditorium. Morrible was holding an emergency, mandatory school assembly regarding the "incident" in Dillamond's class. She was droning on and on, apparently impressing upon all of us the seriousness of this situation, and imploring us to look into our hearts and banish any hatred therein, and ranting about how, as the dean of this school, she was horrified and humiliated about the whole situation. Now, it wasn't as if I didn't _like_ Morrible, because she had every confidence in my abilities and was going to give me the opportunity of a lifetime working for the Wizard, but I had to admit, Mirabelle might've had a point here. I didn't think it was all that appropriate of her to go on like this about how offended she was personally about the whole thing.

The staff was seated in a few rows of chairs up on the stage. I could see Dillamond in the front row, looking eyes trained on the ground, clearly angry and embarrassed to be there. The students were watching Morrible with glazed eyes. The shock and the frantic murmurings between students who hadn't heard about the incident until now had died off around halfway through the speech, and boredom had set in. Even the staff was starting to look bored. Apparently, a Morrible speech could do that to you.

At very long last, the speech ended with a Morrible-esque flourish—an elaborate apology to Dillamond on behalf of the entire student body and a plea for nationwide harmony. I grimaced. Sometimes, she did just like to hear herself talk….

When the speech ended, Olivia hopped up quickly, and with her hands cupped protectively around Mirabelle, she practically fled the room. Nessa, sitting on my other side, tugged at my sleeve.

"Go catch up with Morrible. Go ask about Glinda and the seminar."

"Nessa, now's not a good time—" I began tiredly.

"Fae, come _on_. The dance is in a couple days. It won't kill you to go ask her now."

I was too burnt out to argue. "Fine," I muttered. Oh, well. I supposed it was best to get all the unpleasantness over with sooner rather than later. Time to turn this crappy day into an even crappier day…

After making sure that Nessa was looked after (Boq was dutifully wheeling her down the aisle and out the double doors), I waited for the auditorium to empty, and then went to flag down Morrible. She was descending the stairs off the side of the stage, in conversation with one of the math teachers. I called her name, and she looked up, surprised.

"Miss Thropp!"

"Madame, could I—" I glanced apologetically at the other teacher. "Could I speak to you in private?"

Her penciled brows knit in confusion. "Dear, whatever for?"

"It's…important." _Say no, say no, please say no, _I silently begged.

"Of course." She turned to the other teacher. "If you'll excuse us?" The other teacher looked a little offended that I would take precedence over his own conversation with the dean of Shiz, but he nodded and rather huffily walked away.

"Now what's the matter, Miss Thropp?" she asked wearily. "Is this about the...incident?"

"No, it's not that." I took a deep breath before taking the highly unpleasant plunge. "I'd like Glinda Upland to join the sorcery seminar," I said quickly.

Morrible blinked her protuberant eyes. Once, twice. "What's that, dear?"

"Glinda Upland," I managed to repeat through gritted teeth. "I'd like her to be in the seminar with me."

"Miss Upland?" Her lips quirked, as if wondering whether or not this was a joke. "As in, your roommate, Miss Upland?"

I sighed inwardly. "Yes. My roommate, Glinda Upland."

"But Miss Thropp, surely you understand that she…" Morrible cleared her throat. "Miss Upland lacks ability to perform the simplest of spells. Her family has had me test her proficiency several times over and she—"

"Madame, I insist," I blurted before I lost the nerve.

"You _insist_?" Her brows all but disappeared beneath her hairline. Obviously I'd crossed a line. "Miss Thropp, you do realize that you don't have the authority to _insist_ that I do anything."

"Yes, Madame, and I apologize," I said quickly. The last thing I needed to do was offend her, or there went my future career out the window. "But…if Miss Upland doesn't join the seminar, I'm afraid I'll have to quit myself."

"What?" She sounded completely taken aback. "Miss Thropp, if this is a matter of you having befriended Miss Upland—"

"No, Madame, it's not that," I said. _Lurline, anything but that…_ "It's for…personal reasons that I'd rather not discuss."

"Personal reasons." She looked skeptical.

"Yes."

"And you believe that Miss Upland has the competence to complete my seminar?

_No._ "Yes."

"And you have full confidence in her abilities?"

_Hell no. _"Yes, I do."

She looked at me, her expression scrutinizing, as if she was trying to guess what it was I was thinking. _Good luck with that. _

Then, she pursed her lips and said carefully, "Very well, Miss Thropp. I will…consider it."

"Thank you, Madame."

"Don't mention this to her, though. If I do decide to let her join the seminar, I will let her know myself." She was silent a second. "Whatever your reasons, Miss Thropp, I do fervently hope that you'll reconsider your threat to leave the seminar for Miss Upland's sake. It would be a terrible shame to lose you."

By the night of the dance, Morrible still had not made her decision. Or I didn't think she had, because Glinda had not said a word about it to me, and was acting no differently than usual. She was swept up in the buzz of anticipation surrounding the dance, a buzz that had barely been dampened by something so _trivial_ as a hate crime. In fact, it had merely given people more to talk about, and I was angry to find that people were getting a kick out of trying to figure out who'd done it. The way they were talking about it, it sounded less like a sick crime and more like a daring prank. The members of Dillamond's class, however, hadn't said a word about it. I hadn't even heard Glinda or Fiyero say anything. I hadn't gotten the chance to see Olivia and Mirabelle much, because they kept to themselves for the rest of the week and didn't show up to meals very often, but Mirabelle did mention to me how sick and embarrassed she was of people coming up to her and asking if she was okay, as if they had some sort of moral obligation to do so. Even though she was outraged over what had happened, and swore that the minor police investigation that was conducted the day after was a joke and just for show, she didn't think it was _her _these "concerned" students ought to be worried about, but Dillamond. That didn't mean Olivia wasn't worried sick, though. Idina had mentioned finding Olivia in the bathroom one day, in tears, having a frantic phone conversation with her mother about it. I fervently hoped that Mirabelle wasn't in any actual danger, and that it was just a stupid protest, but after what Dillamond had told me, I wasn't so sure anymore.

The night before the dance, I took Nessa to buy a new dress, because she'd decided at the last minute that none of the ones she'd brought with her from home were good enough. And while we were out, she'd made me buy a new dress as well, and shoes. I was just going to show up in jeans and a blouse, because I was not planning on mingling, but Nessa had expressly forbidden me to do so, and made me try on several nauseatingly frilly dresses before deciding on one that she liked. It was purple, shorter than I was comfortable with, and made out of some admittedly nice-looking shimmery fabric. The dress itself was pretty decent compared to the others, but when I tried it on, I started laughing.

"What?" Nessa snapped, looking in the dressing room mirror at me. "Fae, it looks really nice on you. And come on, it took me forever to find one you didn't completely hate."

"I look like a grape," I pointed out, holding the skirt up next to my skin. "Green on purple."

Nessa looked at the contrast and frowned. "Hmm…"

"I'm right, aren't I?"

She sighed and threw her hands up. "Alright, fine. You win. I think there's a black one of the same kind on the rack. But get the same style, okay? It _does_ look good on you."

"If you say so." I shrugged and went to change back into my clothes. I _did_ sort of like the dress, despite the bad color contrast, and I didn't think I'd mind it at all in black, but I wasn't going to admit it to her.

We left the mall an hour later with two dresses and two pairs of shoes—a bright yellow dress for Nessa with some petite white satin heels, and the black dress with some flat sandals for me. Nessa had tried to talk me out of buying flat sandals on the grounds that I wasn't 40 years old and therefore had no business buying "matronly" formal shoes. But I'd already let her talk me into getting the dress, and I pointed out that I'd probably twist my ankle before I even made it off the campus wearing heels.

When Saturday rolled around, I was unsurprised to find that Glinda started getting ready at noon, practically beating her curly hair into submission with a flat iron and painting her nails. Her dress was hanging on the back of the door and covered with the protective plastic covering they give you at the dry cleaners'. She'd tried it on several times already over the past week, giving her dress-clad form many appraising looks in the mirror, and turning around and around so she could see herself from all angles.

Whether I hated her or not, I had to give her props for choosing a really good dress. Or rather, a good dress for _her. _Pink and completely coated with opalescent sequins, it was extremely short and had a plunging neckline, and on the hanger it had looked tacky, like something out of a stripper's wardrobe. But when she put it on along with the pearly white, mile-high pumps, for some reason it suited her perfectly, when on somebody else it might've looked completely trashy. I guess it helped that she was short. In formal clothes, she was able to carry herself with an undeniable grace, like a film star, a sophistication that didn't at all match her immaturity and bitchier tendencies. And she had my grudging respect for that, even if there was nothing _respectful _about the way that she and Fiyero were bound to act tonight…

"I'm going to Pfannee's to finish getting ready," she informed me at around four, without looking at me, adding a topcoat to her painted fingernails.

I was sitting on my bed, trying to get some of my Monday homework out of the way. I looked up. "Okay…" _And you're telling me this…why?_

She blew gently on her thumbnail. "So…I'll be seeing you tonight, then."

"Yeah…I guess." _Huh?_

She didn't say anything for a long time. She'd put a bathrobe on over her tank top and sweatpants and was beginning to throw her makeup into a bag. I was beginning to wonder if I'd simply imagined that she'd been talking to me, when she started up again.

"Is that your dress?" she asked, jerking a thumb to my dress, hanging on the bathroom door.

"Uh-huh…"

She paused. "It's…not bad."

Okay, yeah. She was definitely up to something.

"Thanks." I was watching her warily now.

"Uh-huh." She carefully pinned her hair back with a rose-shaped barrette. "It suits you."

"Uh, thank you. Erm, yours too." The compliment was almost painful to utter.

She smiled in the mirror. "Yes. Yes it does."

I snorted. "Modest, aren't we?"

She pouted at me, but then spun around with a flip of her hair to grab her purse off her vanity. "Nothing to be modest about." She turned back to me and arched an eyebrow. "You know it's a costume party, right?"

"A-ha," I said, meeting her eyes. I was about 99% sure she was lying to me. "Why would it be a costume party? Hallow's Eve was a week ago."

"Well, we save up all our Hallow's Eve festivities for this party every year because they're only a week apart."

Another lie. There had been crazy parties all over campus on Hallow's Eve. It had taken me hours to fall asleep that night because of all the noise.

"Okay. So, where's your costume, then?" I asked her.

She blinked. "I've got a mask and a tiara. They're at Pfannee's. Do _you_ have a costume?"

I shrugged. "Figure I'll just go in what I planned on wearing. Too late now, right?"

"Well if you want," she said, on her way out the door, "I've got a witch's hat that my grandma sent me in the mail with some candy she sent me for Hallow's Eve. It's kind of cheap, but…it's black, so it'll go with the dress. It's better than nothing."

"My sister doesn't have a costume," I told her. "I'd have thought somebody would've told her by now that it was a costume party."

"I guess everyone just assumed she knew," she said flippantly. "It's supposed to be a secret, what you come dressed as every year. You're not supposed to talk about it until the day of. And there's always a bunch of poor freshmen that don't get the memo."

"If Nessa doesn't have a costume, I'm not going in one either."

"Suit yourself," she said. "But it's in the top of the closet, in case you want to try it on." She left the room. In the silence that followed the _click_ of the closing door, I glanced at my dress and then to the closet door, curious despite myself.

The costume party thing? Bullshit. Probably total bullshit. I knew that.

But she had a point. My dress would make for one cool witch costume. And if I was to pick a costume? Well, I _was_ a sorcery student… Technically a witch, if not a very good one. Not yet, at least.

Slightly amused, I got up and got undressed, took my dress off the hanger, slipped into it, and glanced in the mirror. Glinda was right. Not bad.

Slightly heartened, I went to the closet to retrieve the hat. Turned out she hadn't been lying. A cheap nylon witch's hat was sitting on the shelf above the hanging clothes. Just a bit paranoid, I flipped the hat upside down and glanced inside. I wouldn't put it past her to have hidden something unpleasant inside.

But I didn't see anything, so I went back to the mirror and perched the hat on my head. It gave me a bit of a static shock when it touched my hair.

I couldn't help smiling when I looked in the mirror.

The effect was superb. The hat, tilted a little to the side, made for a campy but admittedly fabulous witch costume. Not that it was something I'd be caught dead leaving the dorm in, but it was fun to see, nonetheless. A bit of absurdity to cheer me up after everything that had happened this week.

I laughed a little and rolled my eyes before reaching up to take the hat off.

The problem?

The hat wouldn't come off.


End file.
